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MCWHINNEY. 


THE 


_ CHINESE PROBLEM 


or 


Missionary Mistakes 
by 
T. M. McWHINNEY, D.D., LLD., 
Author of 


“Heavenly Recognition,” “Reason and Revelation,” 
a “Crime Legalized,” “Eighth Wonder,” 
“Ethical Science,” and “Christ 
Our Creed.” 


January, 1901. 


PRICE, 25 CENTS. 


CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION, 
DAYTON, OHIO. 
J. N., HESS, AGENT. 


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7 fie st Ate ae bi 
{ F or is \ 


To 
thewoanse 
of better methods in for- 
eign missionary work, based on 
intelligence, which must pioneer the Gospel, 
and the Christ religion of love, which proposes to 
subdue the world by the “Sword of 
the Spirit,” this booklet is 
aiovGht 110 Nast ea 
erat © ch te 
ed. 


The 
world will not 
be brought to believe in 
Jesus as ‘‘God manifest in the 
flesh,” through the instrumentality 
of a divided priesthood. Hence that peer- 
less prayer in the very presence of an awful death, 
‘‘That they all may be one; as thou Father 
art in me, and I in thee, that they also 
may be one in us; that the 
world may believe that 
thou hast sent 


” 


me. 


The Chinese Problem, 


PREFATORY. 


In the light of Christian ethics, how shall Aryan 
civilization deal with Mongolian ignorance, supersti- 
tion and idolatry? A more profound and humane 
question than ¢/zs never stirred the brain and heart 
of Europe and America. Not only millions of money 
and common humanity, but alas! the blood of the 
slain, in pitiful accents, cry loudly for a righteous 
solution of this mighty problem. The paltry out- 
come of one hundred years of misdirected service, of 
wasted treasury, and of innocent blood, should lead 
every soul, consecrated to the cause of humanity, 
prayerfully to look into the methods of missionary 
work in the Celestial Empire. Possibly, there is a 
better way! © 

At the very threshold of this discussion the author 
is confronted with the fact that the views sought to 
be maintained in this booklet are not in keeping with 
the popular thought! Conscious duty, however, 
especially to the aged, is vastly more important than 
it is to catch the public ear. Besides, we are re- 
minded that majorities are not always right, but 
usually wrong! It always has been so, is so now, 
and perhaps will be so until the millennium. For 
example, we believe that Martin Luther was in the 


6 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


right, though he stoodalone. Socrates was the most 
venerable sage and profound philosopher of Greece, 
yet he was compelled to drink the hemlock. 

While we may pity and commiserate the man who 
has the temerity to pit himself against popular senti- 
ment, nevertheless, intelligence and charity will give 
him a patient hearing and an honorable criticism. 
Truth asks nothing more, certainly it should have 
nothing less, from thinking readers. 

But just here we are met with an almost insuper- 
able difficulty in our efforts at honest and unprej- 
udiced criticism. We are creatures of habit. Habit 
is hard to change. Fora hundred years our fathers 
and we have been in the Aadzt of thinking that the 
best method of saving China is to send the mission- 
ary in advance of the school-teacher; build the church 
and afterward the school-house; study the Chinese 
language before teaching them the English; let the 
missionary go and tell those degraded people the 
matchless story of the Cross, and on the heels of it 
we will send our Christian school-teachers and pro- 
fessors, build our school-houses and colleges, and 
thus train those benighted Mongolians along lines 
of art, philosophy, discovery, invention, the richest 
literature of the world, and by intellectual develop- 
ment,’ enable those semi-barbarous people to com- 
prehend something of the heights, depths and 
breadths of our Christian civilization ! 

While in the presence of this Aadit of thinking for 
the last one hundred years, it seems almost like mad- 
ness for one to present any other method, yet it is the 
object of this little book to show that this mode of 


PREFATORY. Wi 


operation, during the last century, has been to re- 
verse unwittingly the divine order by putting religion 
before zuzteligence, and thus thwarting the righteous 
purpose of the great Protestant church. 

Let it be distinctly understood and emphasized, ~ 
that in virtue of the relation we sustain to our breth- 
ren of the Celestial Empire, it becomes our duty 
to give them the inestimable benefit of our religion 
of love. It is not the purpose of the author to 
call in question the sacred relation we sustain to 
those unfortunate people, and the lofty obligation 
that grows out of that relation, but only to criticise 
the methods by which this sublime end may become 
an accomplished fact. It is only an humble effort to 
point out a ‘‘more excellent way;” a mode of opera- 
tion more in keeping with the spirit and life of a 
religion, the central and fundamental truth of which 
is ‘‘Love to God and love to humanity.” To put it 
in concise, terse, and unmistakable terms, it pur- 
poses to show that China will never be made Chris- 
tian by the cruel methods of the gunboat, the can- 
non, the musketry, the sword and the awful slaughter 
of the innocent. 

In the presence of God, and in the light of recent 
history, we solemnly aver that blood and carnage 
have been the necessary results of our modern methods 
of Christianizing bleeding China. Our missionaries, 
good as they are, and self-sacrificing as they have 
been, are, nevertheless, at this hour expecting our 
Government to protect them by the American army, 
whose business will be to butcher, if need be, the 
necessarily ignorant and superstitious. Those dear 


8 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


brothers seem to have forgotten that ‘‘the weapons 
of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through 
God.” A Christian may be, and often has been, 
called upon to sacrifice his life for his religion, but 
certainly he is not called upon to preach the Gospel 
of love to a people, some of whom must be slaugh- 
tered, so that the other some may be saved! 

The object herein contemplated is not to oppose 
missionary work, but kindly to show that the present 
method of attempting to Christianize a people who 
are degraded by the doctrine of polytheism and 
idolatry, unintentionally disregards the divine law of 
preparation, ignores the instruction of the Master in 
His commission, violates a fundamental law of 
psychology, and hence, the pitiful outcome. We 
purpose to make plain the fact that our present mode 
of dealing with China, in our missionary effort, is de- 
void of all sound logic, of all sound reason, and that 
there is a better way. 

The author is not unmindful of the fact that some 
will read the following pages in the spirit of stoic in- 
difference; others, whose traditional thought has been 
fossilized, will simply ignore their arguments and go 
right on thinking and doing as they have formerly 
done; while still others, with reason on the throne 
and in the spirit and love of the truth, will weigh 
and carefully ponder every suggestion. It is only 
for the benefit of the latter and through them the 
hope of establishing better methods in foreign mis- 
sionary fields, that this booklet is hopefully written. 


THE LAW OF PREPARATION. 0) 


SECTION (1) 
The Law of Preparation. 


First, in the administration of divine affairs, this 
law is more fixed than the stars. Intelligence re- 
quires no proof of the fact that all great movements, 
in the physical and moral universe, have been pre- 
ceded by wise preparation. 

(1) Only a glance at the geological changes in 
the earth’s history, getting it ready as a home for 
man, illustrates this proposition. From the time this 
globe was thrown from the sun, a nebulous ball of 
fire, until now, each epoch has been preceded by 
ages of preliminary steps. Infinite wisdom and 
benevolence were steadily at work, one step pre- 
paring for another, and another, and still another. 
It required untold ages of preparation to get the 
earth ready for the growth of the vegetable and the 
introduction of the animal kingdoms; and other ages 
to prepare man to be soinething else than a mere 
animal running on his hind legs, ‘‘seeking whom he 
might devour.’’ And as preparatory evolution is 
going on now, as ever before, ‘‘it doth not yet ap- 
pear” what this earthly home shall be, only this, that 
the wise and benevolent improvements of the past 
are prophetic of a sublimely beautiful outcome. 


10 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


(2) The intellectual, social, moral, and religious 
sciences are but the counterpart of man’s intellectual, 
social, moral and religious nature. The fact to be 
remembered is, that all these sciences are divinely 
graded to meet the capacity of the human mind. 
Mastering the first little truth, the mind is thus pr- 
pared to comprehend the next higher truth, and the 
next and the next, until it can measure the distance 
to the Pleiades. To undertake to read before we 
have learned the A B C, or to study astronomy 
before we have studied mathematics, is to reverse the 
divine order and to end in hopeless failure. 

In preparing the ignorant people of China, how- 
ever, we have the double duty not only of teaching 
them the elementary truths, by which they may be 
able to comprehend the central, fundamental and 
matchless truth of God as Father, but we must first 
eliminate from their minds the rubbish of polytheism, 
idolatry and superstition, which has been accumu- 
lating for two thousand years. This thought, how- 
ever, will be illustrated in another section. 

To preach the lofty truths of the gospel to those 
benighted people without such preparation, is unwit- 
tingly to violate the divine command, ‘‘Cast not your 
pearls before swine, lest they trample them under 
their feet ahd turn again and rend you.” That is 
precisely what is being done now in China, as we 
shall see later on. 

Secondly, preparation not only characterizes all 
the works of God, but it is a law universally observed 
by man along all lines of art, science, business, and 
in everything else, except in his haste to convert 


THE LAW OF PREPARATION. RE 


China! Here, it seems that we have allowed a 
‘zeal without knowledge,” sectism, or something 
else, to get the better of our judgment. A father 
who would send his seven year old boy to school to 
study geometry before he is able to read, would be 
considered a subject fit to be kept at the expense of 
the State. The farmer who would sow his wheat 
before he had prepared the ground with plow and 
harrow, would be adjudged by the court as in great 
need of having a guardian. All enterprises, great 
and small, human or divine, observe the universal 
law of preparation, save the stupendous business of 
converting poor superstitious China! And by vio- 
lating this law, we have illustrated the old adage, 
‘Haste makes waste.”’ 

Evil consequences attend the violation of this 
universal law of preparation, with the certainty of 
cause and effect. Surely the heart-sickening results 
that have been passing in panoramic review during 
the last twelve months, should convince every sober- 
minded person that there is something radically 
wrong in our mode of dealing with the Celestials, 
and that the urgent demand of the hour is, that we 
prayerfully ‘‘ask for the old paths,” or for God’s way 
of dealing with superstition and idolatry. 


12 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


SECTION (II) 
Preparation for Christ’s Coming. 


% 


The question has been asked again and again, if 
the salvation of the race depended on the mission of 
Christ, why was his coming deferred for four thou- 
sand years? The obvious answer is, the world was 
not ready; it was too zgnorant to comprehend His 
matchless truth. The history of civilization and the 
divine logic of the plan of salvation clearly show that 
He waited for the world’s preparation. Previously to 
the flood, for example, there was no civilization 
worthy of the name. The divine side of the con- 
troversy between God and man, of finally Christian- 
izing the race, was perfect at the beginning, and only 
the unprepared condition of the human side made it 
necessary for Christ to defer His coming. 

First. The soul’s native intellectuality, morality 
and religiosity were pronounced ‘‘Good’’ at the 
beginning; yet it required three thousand years of 
training under such characters as Enoch, Noah and 
Abraham, for these germs of manhood to be suffi- 
ciently developed to warrant the coming of Moses, 
whose grand mission was to proclaim in the face of 
universal polytheism, the sublime doctrine of One 
God and thus lay the foundation of all true religion. 


PREPARATION FOR CHRIST'S COMING. 13 


Second. To get the world ready for the coming of 
the Christ, whose immeasurable mission was to re- 
veal the Fatherly character of that God, it required 
even more than ¢ex centurzes, under the leadership of 
such noble souls as Isaiah, Jeremiah and Malachi, to 
‘prepare the way for the coming of the Lord.” 
‘“‘The law,’ which established the doctrine of one 
God, ‘‘was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” 

Third. Even at the end of forty centuries only a 
comparatively few of the leaders of public thought 
were prepared to hear the final proclamation, ‘‘God 
is love.”’ This truth will be illustrated further on. 
Jerusalem being the conceded center of the best 
civilization known to the race, the commission was 
given to the twelve apostles, to begin at Jerusalem. 
Nor were they allowed to go into any other city only 
as they were welcome. The Master said, ‘‘Into what- 
soever city you enter, and they receive you not, go 
your way.” 

Pause right here! Can words be plainer, going to 
show that the gospel must not be forced on any city? 
I submit this proposition: If our missionaries to the 
Celestial Empire had obeyed this one divine injunc- 
tion, then in that event they had gone their way 
from one city to another all over China without stop- 
ping anywhere! Jn the light of history, we solemnly 
aver that not a solitary city in China during the last 
hundred years has made these misstonartes welcome, in 
the sense of making their religion self-sustaining. This 
Jesus required, as we shall see. 

It was and is a clear case of forcible entry and that, 
too, at the point of the sword. Nothing, absolutely 


14 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


nothing but the strong arm of international law, 
backed by an invincible army, has kept public senti- 
ment in China from annihilating all the missionaries 
and their converts. 

Only remove the monster gunboats, the glistening 
bayonets, and the invincible armies of Europe and 
America, and the Boxer movement would sweep 
over the Celestial Empire like fire in dry stubble, 
until all the missionaries and their converts would be 
cruelly slaughtered. The missionaries would ‘go 
their way,’’ but for powder and lead. 

We submit for your prayerful thought, if in the light 
of the gospel of love, we have any right hus to force 
ourselves into the national home of other people? Is 
it not a most flagrant violation of the golden rule? 
Would we wish China or any other race of people 
to compel us, at the point of the sword, to accept 
their religion? Justa little honest thinking will en- 
able us to see, as God sees, that we are acting upon 
the false and selfish theory that ‘‘might makes right.” 

We submit further, if the blessed proclamation, ‘“‘On 
earth peace, good-will to men,’’ does not imply an 
‘Open door,” a ‘‘Hearty welcome,” the promise of 
a ‘‘Ripe harvest,’ and the kind invitation, ‘‘Come 
over and help us.” The burning question of the 
hour is, What will bring China to this happy state of 
mind? Nothing, absolutely nothing but a long pro- 
cess of preparation. ‘‘The mills of the gods grind 
slowly but finely.’”’ We must first begin right, and 
then ‘‘make haste by going slow.” 


THE LORD’S COMMISSION. 15 


SECTION (Ii) 


Our Lord’s Commission. 


. The command, ‘‘Go ye into all the world and 
preach the gospel to every creature,’”’ should be in- 
terpreted in the light of historic fact, and in keeping 
with the laws of Biblical exegesis. As commonly 
quoted, it is, seemingly, without the slightest refer- 
ence to either. Only go without sense or reason, 
anywhere and everywhere, and as ye go, preach. 
Whereas, we should carefully consider the condztzons 
of the world at the time the command was given. 
Furthermore, we should remember that our divine 
Lord distinctly told his disciples where to begin, 
where to go and where wot to stay. Men of thought 
and moderation, therefore, will first prayerfully take 
into account the state of the world at the time the 
commission was given. On this point two facts are 
marvelously manifest: 

First. At the coming of the Christ the world was 
at peace. Previously to that time the history of our 
race was little else than that of cruel war. Fora wise 
and benevolent purpose, it was divinely ordered that 
at the inauguration of the new dispensation, there 
should be a time of universal quiet, so that the 


16 THE CHINESE PROBLEM, 


‘Prince of Peace” might be proclaimed as having 
arisen from the dead, and divinely commissioned to 
“show us the Father.’’ But for such unlimited 
peace, there could have been no such universal gath- 
ering. This was ‘‘the Lord’s doing.” 

Secondly. Jesus was born at a time, not only of 
universal peace, but when intelligence and consequent 
civilization were more equally distributed among the 
nations of earth than ever before or since. In the 
light of this fact, together with the foregoing, the 
command, ‘‘Go ye into a// the world,”’ was deeply sig- « 
nificant then as compared with what it would be now. 

To see this fact clear as a sunbeam, we need only 
glance at the general condition of the nations of the 
earth at that time and then think of what they are 
now. India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, China, and 
Rome, through divinely appointed instrumentalities, 
had at that time reached the zenith of their glory. 
It will be interesting and profitable for the reader to 
follow carefully these historic footprints of Fatherly 
benevolence, as herein given. 

(1) History records the providential fact that our 
modern civilization was first established by the 
Aryans in central Asia, some four thousand years 
ago. While all the rest of the human race was 
marauding over the world much after the fashion of 
wild animals, these Aryans stopped their roving and 
formed a community. From Max Mueller and oth- 
ers, we learn that they established domestic relations, 
and were first to give the sacred names father, 
mother, brother, sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, 
etc. They built houses, towns, and established 


THE LORD’S COMMISSION. 17 


municipal government. They domesticated animals, 
trained the ox to the yoke, and cultivated the soil. 
By their continuous and persistent thinking along 
lines of art, science, morals and religion, they es- 
tablished the Sanscrit language which has proved to 
be the mother of all tongues. 

More and better, these Aryans, under God, lifted 
themselves out of the depths of ignorance, up and 
still up to the sublime doctrine of the unity of the 
universe and the consequent unity of God. The fact 
to be distinctly remembered is, that these Aryan 
families at the end of about two hundred years, had 
built up a civilization and an empire founded upon 
the sublime doctrine of pure monotheism. Those who 
believe in the precious truth of God as universal 
Father, and man as universal brother, will readily 
see the wise and benevolent hand of God directing 
these Aryans to stop their wild roving and establish 
a mighty kingdom based on the doctrine of one God. 

(2) Nor is it any less marvelously benevolent that 
at the end of about two centuries this monotheistic 
empire should be disintegrated and scattered to the 
various parts of the globe. 

(a) History tells us that on the breaking up of 
this first civilization some of these Aryan families 
moved into southern Asia, and after driving out the 
“Black Skins,’’ founded the Indian Empire, the 
like of which the world had not known. At the 
birth of Christ, they counted among their citizens, 
philosophers, scholars, statesmen, and orators by the 
thousands. Besides, and what is better, these Aryans 


had a most helpful religion based on the truth of 
2 


18 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


monotheism. Their sacred book, the Veda, sup- 
posed to be the oldest writing in the world, taught 
the doctrine of one God. 

(b) Other families of this original civilization 
migrated to Persia, whose fame at the birth of the 
Savior was equal to that of India. Parseeism, es- 
tablished by Zoroaster, was built on the central and 
fundamental truth of the absolute unity of God. 
Dualism was an after thought of his disciples and 
formed no part of Zoroaster’s theology. The Zend- 
Avesta, the original Bible of Parseeism, maintained 
the doctrine of monotheism. It was, perhaps, these 
monotheistic believers who went to Jerusalem to 
pay homage to the ‘“‘New-born King.” Be this as it 
may, it was, doubtless, these men of God, who two 
thousand years ago, mapped the skies, gave us the 
constellations substantially as we have them now, and 
thus laid the foundation of our modern system of 
astronomy. 

(c) Later on, some of this original stock of 
Aryans moved into the little country of Hellas, and 
organized a most marvelous civilization. At the 
time our Lord commissioned His apostles to ‘‘go 
into all the world,” this diminutive land of Greece 
had become ‘‘celebrated in the history of freedom, 
of literature, of art, of philosophy, and of civiliza- 
tion.” Greece reached the apex of her unprec- 
edented glory under the sanctifying influence of the 
doctrine of one God and immortality, as first taught 
by the Aryans and afterward emphasized by such 
grand characters as Socrates, Plato, and the whole 
school of Platonic philosophy. 


THE LORD’S COMMISSION. 19 


Socrates was condemned by a jury of his country- 
men to drink the hemlock, because he laughed at 
their tutelary gods and sneered at their superstitious 
idolatry. While the common people were given to 
idolatry, the worship of many gods, nevertheless, 
the grand men who gave Greece a name and a his- 
tory that will go down through the ages, were men 
who believed in God and in the immortality of the 
soul. These are the basic truths that have lain at 
the foundation of all the civilizations that ever have 
been or ever will be. 

When we remember that Macedonia and all the 
‘regions round about,” had caught the inspiration 
of the Platonic philosophy, founded on the truth of 
one God and the soul’s immortality, we can readily 
see how they could so appreciate the sweet story of 
the cross as to send word to the preacher, ‘‘Come 
over and help us.”” Nor are we surprised that the 
city of Thessalonica was prepared to appreciate the 
angelic message, ‘‘On earth peace, good-will to 
men.” They were in touch with monotheism. 

(d) At the birth of Jesus, Egypt, the mother of 
science, was yet in her glory. While it is a matter 
of historic dispute as to whether or not this famous 
country of the Nile was built up by the Aryans of 
central Asia, all are agreed that this almost match- 
less civilization was founded on the doctrine of pure 
monotheism, and the endless life of man. This fact 
is abundantly proved from the ‘‘Book of the dead,’’ 
found buried in the mummy-caskets. All this mum- 
mification, together with the sacred book of the dead, 
gave expression of their faith in a life to come. 


20 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


(ec) The monotheistic civilization of India in the 
fulness of time, was carried into China, and was the 
inspiration that built up the ‘‘Celestial Empire.” 
The story of China’s intellectual, moral and religious 
greatness at the time the commission was given, ‘‘Go 
ye into all the world,” and its better fitness then to 
comprehend the lofty truth, ‘(God is love,” and its 
utterly unfit condition now, is reserved for another 
section. 

(f) ‘Still other divisions of this great army of 
Aryans left central Asia and migrated into southern 
Europe. Of all the trees taken from the original 
nursery of Asia, none withstood the cyclone of igno- 
rance, superstition and idolatry, save the one planted 
in the soil of southern Europe. To see that the 
other nations of the world are not so well-prepared 
for the proclamation of the gospel as they were two 
thousand years ago, behold India, Persia, Egypt, 
Greece and China, all gone back and now plunged 
into the depths of semi-barbarism. All sitting in 
the dark and gloomy shadow of a glorious past, 
waiting to be touched into an intelligence that will 
prepare them to appreciate the final and sublime 
message, ‘‘God is love.” 

(In connection with the foregoing statements there 
are two great historic facts eminently worth knowing, 
namely: First, all the great civilizations to which 
reference has been had, were founded by the Aryan 
or white race. None are in dispute save that of 
Egypt. Second, all were built on the basic truth of 
one God and the immortality of the soul. In proof 
of this the reader need only consult such authors as 


THE LORD'S COMMISSION. 21 


Max Mueller, James Legge, and Dr. Frank F. 
Ellinwood, Secretary of the Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions of the Presbyterian Church.) 

It is a divinely significant fact that two thousand 
years ago the leading men of those old civilizations 
were proclaiming the sublime doctrine of one God 
and the life everlasting. To the unbiased reader of 
history it is obviously manifest, that Brahmanism, 
Hindooism, Buddhism, and Parseeism, under the 
leadership of such divinely appointed characters as 
Brahma, Buddha, Confucius and Zoroaster, had been 
stepping-stones to the final religion of love and unity, 
and under God, had prepared the world for the com- 
ing of him who was the fulfillment of all prophecy, 
the end of all revelation. The fulness of time had 
come for the proclamation, ‘‘Go ye into all the world 
and preach the gospel.” 

Second. While the nations of earth, as we have 
seen, were far better prepared to understand and 
appreciate the gospel two thousand years ago, than 
they are now, nevertheless the Master gave His dis- 
ciples specific instruction as to their personal quali- 
fications and methods. He instructed them to be 
united, and plainly told them where to begin, where 
to go and especially where oz to stay. 

(1) They were required to remain in Jerusalem 
until they were of ‘‘one accord” and all baptized by 
the one sweet spirit of love. They were ot com- 
missioned to ‘‘go into all the world,” with a divided 
theology, and thus build up a divided church! 

Had half of those twelve been Catholics, going to 
tell the ignorant and unsaved that they were the 


22 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


only true vicegerents of Christ and that all others 
were heretics, while the other half were Protestants 
feeling themselves divinely commissioned to pro- 
claim Catholicism as fundamentally false,—with a 
spirit so diametrically opposed to that of the Savior 
of all men, think you that our divine Lord would 
have said, ‘‘Go ye into all the world and preach the 
gospel?” Doubtless, He would have said, ‘‘Tarry 
until ye are of one mind and one spirit.” 

It must be perfectly obvious to every unbiased 
thinker that our Lord’s commission applies either to 
the Catholics or the Protestants, or to neither. Cer- 
tainly no one will claim that it is applicable to both. 
While our Catholic brethren are self-assured that the 
commission belongs to them, the Protestants are 
equally dogmatic in the belief that the command is 
applicable only to them. Viewing the situation from 
the divine standpoint, is it not altogether more reason- 
able to conclude that the commission has not the 
slightest reference to either? Furthermore, had one 
of these twelve been a Calvinist going to tell the hea- 
then that a part of them was ordained from the 
foundation of the world to go to heaven, while the 
other part had been doomed by an unalterable fate 
to perdition; and had still another been an Arminian 
Universalist, purposing to preach that a// would be 
saved however black their character; and still further, 
had one been a Disciple going to preach baptism by 
immersion as a saving ordinance, another a Methodist 
purposing to preach baptism by sprinkling as non- 
essential, and still another, a Quaker who was going 
to tell them that baptism by water is all a heresy, 


THE LORD’S COMMISSION. 23 


doubtless in view of such division, our loving Lord 
would have said, ‘‘Tarry until you are all of one 
accord.” 

We solemnly aver that the modern church with its 
antagonistic creeds, uncharitable criticisms, and lack 
of fellowship for all who ‘ove righteousness and 
hate iniquity,” if tried by the exalted standard of 
qualification, as set up by the blessed Christ, would 
come far short of the divine ideal. 

This wrangling over trinity, depravity, election, 

reprobation, free grace, baptism, this way, that way, 
and no way, has done more to cripple the efforts of 
our missionaries, especially among the intelligent 
Japanese, than any other one cause. Had all our 
missionaries, Catholic and Protestant, who have gone 
into the Japanese field, been of ove accord, and filled 
with the winning spirit of love, and then with kindly 
speech, beautiful life, and loving sympathy, had pro- 
claimed the one supreme and matchless truth, ‘‘God 
is love,” as the saving truth, long ere this the better 
class of Japanese had repeated the testimony of the 
loving disciple, ‘‘We love God because he first loved 
us.””’ 
From the foregoing it is certainly plain that if 
China were as thoroughly prepared for the preaching 
of the gospel now as was Jerusalem then, the church, 
in its present divided condition, is not up to the di- 
vine standard of qualification. It must first come 
together, be of ‘‘one accord,” and thus be in condi- 
tion to be immersed by the sweet spirit of a universal 
charity, or else stay at home, and not go abroad to 
publish its own shameful divisions. 


24 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


(2) The Savior not only required His disciples to 
go in ‘“‘the unity of the spirit,” but also specifically 
directed them in their journey. 

(a) As the Jews at that time stood for the high- 
est civilization known to the race, the disciples were 
required to confine their preaching within the circle 
of the Jews. He said, ‘‘Go not in the way of the 
Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans enter 
ye not.” While our Lord looked away down 
through the ages when the gospel would be preached 
to all nations, yet he bade His disciples remain among 
the monotheistic Jews, and to ‘‘Go not into the way 
of the (polytheistic) Gentiles.’’. From this it would 
seem that intelligence must pioneer the gospel, and 
that we are prohibited from going among idolatrous 
people. 

(b) They were told not only where to go but also 
how to go. ‘Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor 
brass in your purses; nor script for your journey.” 
This clearly shows that there must be such a hearty 
welcome on the part of the people, that they will 
gladly make a free-will offering sufficient to pay all 
expenses. If there be no such ‘‘open door,” they 
were necessarily forbidden to go. As China has 
given no such ‘‘hearty welcome,’”’ our missionaries 
must needs violate the command, ‘‘Provide neither 
gold, nor silver.” Alas! alas! they have spent 
millions of money and now have precious little to 
show for it, as we shall see. 

(c) They were not to preach even in any city of 
the Jews, unless they were made welcome. To 
further prove that the loving Master had no thought 


THE LORD’S COMMISSION. 25 


of forcing His gospel on unwilling hearts, and having 
His disciples go where they were not wanted, He 
instructed them to watch and if they made a mistake 
and found themselves ina city where they were not 
welcome, they were to salute the people kindly and 
then ‘‘shake off the dust of their feet,’’ and leave 
‘‘that house or city.’”’ We submit if in this divine 
commission to ‘‘go into all the world” there is the 
slightest intimation that the disciples were to preach 
the gospel fer force, and without a hearty welcome? 
The very nature of the Christ religion of ‘‘peace and 
good-will” absolutely forbids /orvce, and implies a 
hearty welcome, an open door, and the promise of a 
ripe harvest. one of these conditions exist in China. 

John and Paul felt themselves divinely commis- 
sioned to go into Asia because those people at that 
time were prepared to hear and comprehend the ex- 
alted truths of the gospel. The grand success that 
attended their efforts proves that there was a large 
element there ready to receive them with open arms, 
and that the harvest was fully ready for the sickle. 
No such results have attended the missionary efforts 
in China. It is a sickening failure. 

Besides, (and what is in exact keeping with the 
Savior’s instruction to His disciples, when He said to 
them, ‘‘Go into all the world,”) He chose a word 
which implied preparation and fitness. He did not 
use the Greek word (I'm) Ge, the meaning of which 
is land or earth. Nor yet did he choose the word 
(Ocxoupevn) Otkoumene, which signifies inhabited earth 
or land, but He employed the Greek term (Koopos) 
Kosmos, the signification of which was, and is, 


26 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


harmony or order. The commission, therefore, was, 
‘Go ye into all the (orderly) world.” Our loving 
Lord had no thought of sending His disciples out 
among cannibals and savages to preach the gospel, 
which would be to ‘‘cast pearls before swine,’ and 
which would ‘‘turn again and rend’’ them. That is 
precisely what has been done in China on the largest 
scale the world ever saw. . 

It is true that even in the ‘‘orderly world,” the 
disciples would find a vicious element which would 
endanger their lives. It always has been so and is 
so now, anywhere and everywhere. Hence, the 
warning, ‘‘Behold, I send you forth as lambs among 
wolves.” Thus it is seen that every line of argu- 
ment converges toward God’s fixed and unalterable 
law of preparation, and he who violates it must abide 
the consequences. 


CHINA, PAST AND PRESENT. 27 


SECTION (IV) 


China, Past and Present. 


The Chinese Empire, under Buddhism, was nearly 
one thousand years going up, and for the last fifteen 
hundred years it has been steadily going down, 
notably during the nineteenth century. 

(1) Twenty-two hundred years ago the people of 
China built the famous ‘‘Chinese wall,” thirteen hun- 
dred miles long, twenty feet high, and twenty feet 
thick. It stands today as one of the seven wonders 
of the world. In the days of her glory she con- 
structed a canal the like of which the world has never 
seen. Her scholars discovered many useful arts such as 
that of making gunpowder, of printing, of making fine 
silks, satins, pottery, etc. Six hundred years before 
Christ, Buddha, or Gautama, who claimed to be an 
Aryan of the Aryans, preached the doctrine of one 
God. He used the word Shangte, or Te, as we use 
the term God. Nor does history present a more 
devout worshiper. He taught not only the doctrine 
of pure monotheism, but he made his disciples be- 
lieve that all worthy souls would at death be re- 
sumed by this one God who is the soul of the uni- 
verse, or as Max Mueller says, be ‘‘blown out,”’ or 
their individuality be lost in the one infinite soul. 


28 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


Buddha, under God, not only built up a peace- 
loving and beautiful religion, but by word and deed 
he taught a system of ethics that challenges the ad- 
miration of mankind. Two thousand six hundred 
years ago this man of the ages catalogued the moral 
precepts, ‘‘ Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal ; 
thou shalt not speak untruth; thou shalt not taste 
intoxicating drinks; thou shalt not do to others as 
you would not have others do to you.” 

Buddha taught the doctrine of non-resistance, of 
longsuffering, forgiveness of injuries, of universal 
peace and good-will to men. He called to his serv- 
ice sixty disciples and commissioned them to go in 
different directions and teach all peoples what they 
had seen and heard of him. As quoted by Dr. 
Grant, his commission was, ‘‘Go ye now and turn 
the wheel of the excellent law, set rolling the royal 
chariot wheel of a universal empire of truth and 
righteousness. ’’ 

(2) Alas! alas! the foundation stones of the 
once illustrious Chinese Empire have been removed, 
and hence her magnificent temple of long ago has 
fallen; and it is the exalted mission of Christian civ- 
ilization to have her people ‘‘repent and do their 
first works,’’ and thus prepare them for the lofty 
truths of the gospel. That vast empire of over four 
hundred million souls, as everybody knows, is now 
given to polytheism and idolatry. The minds of 
those poor, degraded people are so completely filled 
with silly rubbish, that it is utterly impossible for 
them at all to comprehend the stupendous truth of 
God as Father, and thus be able to love Him. All 


CHINA, PAST AND PRESENT. 29 


this accumulated trash must first be entirely eliminated 
by intellectual enlightenment. Christianity makes 
little progress when compelled to deal with ignorance, 
none at all while the mind is filled with the worship 
of idols. This is philosophy. 

Asa rule, home missionaries carefully observe this 
law of preparation and cheerful welcome. No one 
but a crank would go down street and, finding a 
crowd of hoodlums, would mount a box and begin to 
preach the gospel. Here at home we have no hesi- 
tancy in saying that the minister who would stop to 
preach to such a crowd is grossly violating the divine 
command, ‘‘Cast not your pearls before swine.”’ But 
that street crowd of hoodlums in their lack of prepar- 
ation and sympathy for the gospel, is quite analogous 
to the condition of the people of China. Only a few 
weeks ago the writer heard Elder Hayner, who had 
been a missionary to China for the last seven years, 
give his experience before a Chinese congregation. 
He said, ‘‘Looking over my large congregation, I 
observed that all were smoking. You must allow 
them to smoke or else they will leave. So, while 
they soaked me with their smoke I soaked them with 
the gospel.” The recital of this story filled us with 
apprehensions that the ‘‘soaking,’’ pro and con, was 
about equally absurd and grotesque. He went on to 
say, ‘‘Not unfrequently some one in the large com- 
pany would cry out, ‘foreign devil,’ and I would 
reply, ‘What about the local devil?’’ Meantime 
another would yell, ‘‘Kill him, kill him.” 

But some one will say, ‘‘That is only the old cry, 
‘Crucify him, crucify him.’”’ But I submit if there 


30 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


is any analogy between the apostolic method of car- 
rying on missionary work, and that adopted by our 
missionaries in China? (a) The people to whom 
the early disciples preached as a body were prepared 
to appreciate the gospel, as was evinced in the 
abundant fruit of their labor. No such preparation, 
and therefore no such results, have attended the mis- 
sionaries in China. (b) Learning that popular senti- 
ment was against them, and that, therefore, they 
were not welcome, the apostles doubtless obeyed the 
injunction, ‘‘Go your way.’’ On the other hand the 
missionaries in China propose to ‘‘stand by their 
guns,’’ and ask their governments to assist them in 
administering cold lead to some, so that they may 
deal out the loving gospel to other some. (c) If, 
however, the apostles found themselves in the wrong 
place, and failed to make their escape, and were, 
therefore, apprehended and condemned to death, 
they made no physical resistance, but went willingly 
to the stake. While they simply took their lives in 
their own hands, asking no protection, our modern 
missionaries put to stake the lives of others by asking 
protection from the government. To stake your 
own life is one thing, to jeopardize the life of your 
brother is quite another. 

But for our habit of thinking and doing, I would 
provoke no controversy by making the following 
averments: (a) During the first three hundred years 
of gospel simplicity, the Christ religion of peace, 
love and good-will, made for the glory of God and 
the elevation of the race as it has never done since. 
(b) During those years of love, non-resistance, and 


CHINA, PAST AND PRESENT. 31 


unparalleled prosperity, the ov/y implement of war- 
fare used by the church, whether for aggressive or 
defensive work, was the ‘‘Sword of the Spirit.” (c) 
Since the middle of the fourth century until now, 
the methods of propagating the gospel have been 
materially changed by largely substituting the sword 
of the flesh for the ‘‘ Sword of the Spirit ;’’ and hence 
came the ‘‘Dark Ages,” the mortifying human 
divisions, and the disgraceful scenes and cruel war 
that have been going on in China during the last 
twelve months by nations professing themselves to 
be Christians ! 

(d) The supreme need of the age is, that the 
Christian world become Christianized, by returning to 
the loving example of the early Christians, who, 
when ‘‘reviled, reviled not again.’’ The Christ spirit 
of love should be divorced from the world spirit of 
war. Nothing but a return to the religion of uni- 
versal love, which ‘‘worketh no evil,’ will usher in 
the age of gospel light, liberty and peace, bury 
human divisions in a hopeless grave, bring the long 
predicted happy day when Christian nations shall 
‘‘beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into 
pruning hooks ;. nation shall not lift up sword against 
nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” 
‘‘How long, O Lord, holy and true,’ until the 
Christian world shall learn that the Christ spirit is 
non-resistant ? 


32 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


(SECTION V) 
Mental Condition of China. 


We may assume on the ground of universal con- 
sent, that the mind of the Mongolian in its habit of 
thought, is fundamentally different from that of the 
Anglo-Saxon. The latter has always believed in the 
unity of the universe and the consequent unity of 
its Creator; while the former has been trained for 
more than a thousand years to believe that nature 
is one vast system of antagonisms, and must, there- 
fore, have creators ad infinitum, some of whom are 
bad, while others are good. For more than a thou- 
sand years these yellow skinned brethren have been 
worshiping these imps of the imagination, until a 
superstitious falsehood and a degrading idolatry have 
been interwoven into every fibre of their mental 
being. It seems like folly zzéensified to go to those 
poor, deluded people, with the lofty truths of mono- 
theism and Christian civilization, while their minds 
are brimful of the degrading falsehoods of polytheism. 
The unmixed falsehood of their long-continued habit 
of thought has so differentiated them from the sub- 
lime thought of our religion, that the elimination of 
this accumulated rubbish zs a psychological necessity. 
Just as long as the Chinese mind believes in ‘gods 


MENTAL CONDITION OF CHINA. 33 


many and lords many,” just so long, if it accept 
Christ at all, it will accept Him as just one more god 
added to the number already c:talogued. 

At this point we raise a psychological question, 
the solution of which will solve the problem of method. 
Assuming that the human soul is composed of vari- 
ous faculties which differentiate in their office, we 
inquire, What particular part of the mind is divinely 
charged with the duty of eliminating falsehood and 
acquiring truthe Mental philosophy founded upon 
conscious experience, gives unmistakable answer to 
this important question. Without stopping to specu- 
late with the theological theories of men, if only you 
will turn your thought in upon your own conscious 
experience, you will readily learn that it is not your 
social faculty, moral faculty, nor yet your religious 
faculty, not one of these or all put together, that 
deal with questions of evidence, touching truth or 
falsehood, but you know by your own conscious ex- 
perience that it is your thinking faculty that examines 
testimony and thus eliminates falsehood, and thus, 
too, prepares for the introduction of truth. It is the 
identical faculty that follows the footprints of science, 
You are perfectly conscious of the fact that it is in- 
tellectual enlightment that drives darkness from 
the mind. Nothing else can. 

It is the intellectual man and not the religious 
man that reasons on the questions of relation between 
cause and effect, between error and truth.- To at- 
tempt by the introduction of religion to drive from 
the Chinese mind the spiritual darkness which has 


been gathering for a thousand years, is like attempt 
3 


34 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 

' 
ing to drive darkness from a room by the introduc- 
tion of a cudgel. What our Chinese brethren need 
is not more religion but more sense. 

In the light of psychology it ts safe to say that man’s 
intellectual nature ts divinely appointed to the task of 
leading out on all lines of art, agriculture, commerce, 
philosophy, good morals or loving religion. Whenever 
reason, or the intellectual faculty, God-appointed to 
the discovery of truth, is thrust to the background, 
that moment the soul is at sea with an immense deal 
of sail, but without ballast, rudder or compass, and 
ready to be dashed upon the desolate coast of igno- 
rance and superstition. 

Having a tinker, man’s first privilege and highest 
duty is to think the thought of a free man along all 
lines, not only of art, science and good morals, but 
of religion as well. If, however, he finds. that in the 
providential distribution of this noble faculty, he was 
left without a ‘‘thinker,” he should be excused for 
thinking and doing as others have thought and done 
for the last one hundred years. Religion, when 
pioneered by sense and reason, is the most beautiful 
thing the world ever saw, but when destitute of com- 
mon intelligence it becomes the most ghastly and 
cruel monster that ever cursed humanity. The good 
Lord deliver us from religious bigotry! Ignorance is 
the legitimate progenitor of all the thumb-screw 
theology that ever cursed the race or dishonored God. 
Sanctified intelligence is the demand of the hour. 

What the Chinese people need and must have be- 
fore they can comprehend and appreciate the match- 
less truths of the gospel, is zwtellectual enlightenment 


MENTAL CONDITION OF CHINA. 35 


by which they may discover the stupid folly of 
polytheism and _ idolatry. Professor Legge of 
Oxford says, ‘‘Five thousand years ago the Chinese 
were monotheists.” Then they believed in one su- 
preme God, and worshiped him, but now they have 
over one million gods, and worship frogs, snakes, 
crocodiles and every new god introduced. 

But we are told that the pivotal point on which 
the Christian character hinges is ‘Love to God,” 
and that love is the product of the heart and not 
of the head! The duty of the Chinese mission- 
ary, therefore, is to appeal to the heart! But I sub- 
mit 27 there be any royal road to the heart except by way 
of the head! How is the heart to be stirred with 
emotions of love, only as it discovers that which is 
lovely? Asa matter of conscious experience every- 
body knows, that knows anything, that love is a 
spontaneity! It comes, not at our bidding, nor downs 
at our saying, but because the intellect has discov- 
ered and presented to the affections that which is 
attractive and lovely. Only when the zwtellect has 
discovered points of loveliness is it possible for the 
heart to love. This zs the philosophy of expertence. 

As learning to love God is the acquisition of the 
loftiest truth of the universe, and the supreme duty 
of man, Christ’s mission, therefore, was to ‘“‘show us 
the Father.’’ This he did by addressing our intelli- 
gence with charming and convincing speech, with a 
beautiful life of omnipotent holiness, and with a win- 
ning spirit of boundless benevolence, and then saying 
to his disciples, ‘‘He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father.” The comprehension of such a divine char- 


36 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


acter, and therefore, the possibility of loving such a 
delightful personage, implies the highest, deepest and 
broadest intellectual thought of which the human 
mind is capable. To know Him is ‘‘life eternal.”’ 

An intelligent comprehension of God’s Fatherly 
character, as revealed in Christ, is the one matchless 
end of all human endeavor, and the one toward which 
the feet of the ages have been wending their way 
since the day-dawn of civilization until now. Not 
wonderful that it required centuries of preparation to 
get the world ready for the coming of this final mes- 
sage! It is the one grand central truth of the uni- 
verse, which is revealed, not only in the infinite per- 
sonality of Jesus, but it is the immeasurable truth 
of all natural philosophies. Not wonderful, there- 
fore, that the world’s largest intelligence has been 
slow, sluggishly slow to grasp the thought, ‘‘God is 
love,” which is, nevertheless, central and fundamental 
to the Christ religion. 

Mental philosophy, as well as observation and ex- 
perience, teaches us that intelligence must pioneer 
religion, else religion is only a blind superstition. 
An idiot may have a heart capable of loving, but 
having no glimmering of reason by which he may 
discover that which is lovely, all is darkness and 
confusion, and he is not responsible for his loves or 
hates. Only as he rises into intelligence does he rise 
into moral accountability. This is recognized by the 
law of the commonwealth as well as that of God. 
To have more religion, therefore, than sense, is a 
calamity. And that is just the fatal ailment of the 
Chinese Empire. 


MENTAL CONDITION OF CHINA. 37 


(1.) It may be said that there are many intelli- 
gent people in China! That is true in a sense, but 
their education is based on a falsehood! There are 
few, if any, exceptions to the statement that their 
learned men are atheists, agnostics, or polytheists. 
Minister Wu says they are agnostics. All reasoning 
from such false premises must be fundamentally 
false. From men occupying such sacrilegious posi- 
tions, the world of true philosophy never received 
anything, nor does it expect anything. Besides, the 
intelligent class are not reached by our missionaries, 
as we shall see in the next section. 

(2.) But we are told that the missionaries estab- 
lish theistic schools and colleges! But I submit if 
preaching the gospel is not frst and paramount, and 
education an after-thought! The church antedates 
the schoolhouse—preaching before teaching. They 
first seek to convert those ignorant people and then 
undertake so to enlighten their reason as to enable 
them to comprehend God, and thus be able to love 
Him. Instead of seeking first to develop and en- 
lighten the intellect, and thus to make it possible for 
those ignorant people to see the ‘‘beauty of holi- 
ness,’”’ and fall in love with ‘‘God manifest in the 
flesh,” they first tell the beautiful story of the cross, 
the sublime significance of which the Chinaman can 
no more comprehend than can a blind man distinguish 
colors. Besides, the present method of teaching is 
not to begin by teaching them our language, but the 
missionary must first spend much precious time in 
getting a smattering of the Chinese poverty-stricken 
speech, by which he is handicapped from start to fin- 


38 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


ish in his attempt to teach them. The plan adopted 
during the last one hundred years has gone upon the 
supposition that they must be taught to love God first, 
and have sense enough to know who God ts, later on. 

This method of dealing with Chinese ignorance is 
about as fatal of good results as was the advice of the 
mother to her son, when she said, ‘‘ My dear boy, you 
must zot go into the water until you have learned 
‘how to swim.’’ In the light of mental science it is to 
disregard the divine plan by putting religion in ad- 
vance of intelligence and thus making ‘‘ darkness 
more visible and confusion worse confounded,”’’ as is 
the case just now in China. It also reverses the 
human order by beginning at the wrong end and thus 
making progress backward. Certainly, in the light 
of history, Chinese civilization has been going back- 
ward for ages, notably during the nineteenth century. 

If only we could think freely, and in the absence of 
preconceived opinion, view the results of our mission- 
ary work in China for the last one hundred years, 
which present the picture of only one hundred thou- 
sand converts out of four hundred million, forty thou- 
sand of whom have been cruelly butchered during 
the last twelve months, the other sixty thousand left 
by the missionaries to the mercy of the mob, the 
tramp, tramp of armies and a world turned upside- 
down; if only we could see this awful picture as our 
heavenly Father sees it, I apprehend that we should 
deliberately conclude that there is something radically 
wrong in our methods of trying to save China. 

But we think it all perfectly right, simply because 
we always thought so, and everybody else thinks so. 


MENTAL CONDITION OF CHINA. 39 


But in the sight of God that is no reason at all. | For 
more than one hundred years all the American peo- 
ple, except the Quakers, (God bless the Quakers) 
believed that human slavery was right. It was, nev- 
ertheless, a gross violation of the divine rights of 
man, for which this country had to pay dearly in 
money and blood. I verily believe that in the sight 
of God the civilized governments of the world are 
violating the divine rights of the people of China by 
attempting to force upon them a civilization for which 
they are not prepared; and by violating this funda- 
mental law of preparation our missionary work in the 
Celestial Empire is in a most pitiable plight as every- 
body knows. For let it not be forgotten that our 
missionaries are in China, not because they are wel- 
come guests, but for the reason that they are pro- 
tected by international law backed by the navies and 
armies of the civilized world. 

In the light of the sweet, gentle and loving spirit 
of Jesus, it is certainly manifest that such is not 
the divine method by which He would have His 
heavenly message of ‘‘On earth peace, good-will 
to men” published abroad. ‘‘He that taketh the 
sword shall die by the sword,” is a prediction now 
being fulfilled to the letter. 

It may be said that the early Christians suffered 
martyrdom! That is true, but they did not martyr, 
nor did they ask to be protected by the sword. — 
This is the difference between Christianity, per se, 
and the war spit which is now rife in China. It is 
the distinction, too, like unto that between light and 
darkness. In the sight of the Father of us all, I 


40 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


believe that the awful slaughter that has been 
going on in China within the last twelve months, has 
been a disgrace to the religion of Christ next akin to 
that of the Spanish Inquisition, and like unto that 
blood-curdling institution, all is done in the sweet 
name ofa religion of love. Whata travesty! ! Whata 
grotesque burlesque on the immaculate Jesus and His 
religion of universal benevolence! ! 

We excite no curiosity when we say that the cen- 
tral thought of Mohammedanism is political power, 
which is to be established at the point of the sword, 
while the central and fundamental truth of Christian- 
ity is Jove, which can be propagated only by the 
“Sword of the Spirit.” I submit if our present 
method in China is not substantially that of Mo- 
hammed, which is diametrically opposed to that of 
Christ. 

Besides, from trustworthy reports, we learn, to our 
shame, that the Buddhist soldiers of Japan manifested 
more humanity and common decency than did the 
Christian soldiers. We will not wonder at this, how- 
ever, if only we remember the fact that our dealings 
with China, as Christian (?) nations, have been in 
direct contravention with the law of preparation, the 
science of psychology, the teaching of history, and 
the plain instruction of Him who was the personal 
incarnation of the Spirit of a boundless love. A 
‘comparatively poor religion lived up to, is vastly 
better than a perfect religion, the central and funda- 
mental truth of which is grossly violated. 


THE PITIFUL OUTCOME. 41 


(SECTION VI) 
The Pitiful Outcome. 


Having unwittingly violated the divine law of 
preparation and unintentionally disregarded the in- 
struction given by our Lord as to personal quali- 
fication, the importance of the unity of the spirit, 
where to go, and especially where ot to stay, we 
need not be surprised at the pitiful outcome. Let 
the reader seek to see the awful situation as our 
loving Savior must see it. 

Nineteen hundred years have come and gone since 
the ‘‘great multitude” of angels filled the night 
breeze of the plains of Judea with the heavenly 
shout, ‘‘Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, 
good-will to men,” and now at the close of all these 
centuries of blood and carnage the Christian (?) 
nations of earth are in arms, with cruel implements 
of war, blood and death, the like of which the world 
had never seen, watching each other with jealous eye, 
lest the grab spirit of the one or the other shall 
obtain more than its share in the ‘‘sphere of influ- 
ence,’’ which seeks to disintegrate that once peaceful 
Chinese Empire! and all, too, in the precious name 
of the immaculate ‘‘ Prince of Peace.” It is beyond 
human conception even to imagine a more colossal 
burlesque on a religion of love and good-will. 


42 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


As China was utterly unprepared to comprehend 
the exalted truths of the gospel, and the church di- 
vided as to what the truths of the gospel are, it 
ought not to be surprising that our missionary work 
among the Celestials has resulted in a stupendous 
failure! One hundred years of honest but mis- 
directed toil and sacrifice; millions of money ex- 
pended; hundreds of honest missionaries massacred 
with indiscriminate violence ; unnumbered thousands 
of ignorant but innocent converts butchered by a 
heathenish mob; sixty thousand other converts de- 
serted by the missionaries and left to the mercy of 
enraged fanaticism; all the civilized nations in arms 
and a distracted world; all this vast, pitiful, and in- 
describable desolation with absolutely worse than 
nothing of good to show for it. By which we mean 
that China is in a worse condition to-day than she was 
a century ago. 

(1) But we are gravely told that during the last 
century the Protestant missionaries have been in- 
fluential in converting one hundred thousand to the 
Christian faith! With the view of learning the exact 
import of this statement, the man of thought and 
moderation, entirely free from sectism, and at liberty 
to think, proceeds to analyze: 

(a) He finds that one hundred thousand out of 
four hundred million gives only one convert to every 
four thousand. Besides, if they are no better than 
American converts at the end of six months they 
must be divided by at least two, thus leaving only 
one out of eight thousand! 

(b) He learns that as a rule the converts belong 


THE PITIFUL OUTCOME. 43 


to the poorest and most uninfluential class of society! 
Fhe writer had the pleasure of meeting Prof. Mark 
Williams, who has spent thirty-four years in mission- 
ary work in China. In answer to the question, 
‘‘What class of Chinese society is most likely to be- 
come converted?’ he replied, ‘‘The unfortunate, 
opium eaters, and the illiterate!” ‘“Do you reach the 
more intelligent and better class of society?’ He 
answered, ‘‘Not as a rule, only as we employ them 
to teach in our schools!” 

(c) This inquirer after truth discovers that the 
converts are no better after conversion than they 
were before. Touching this point, we asked Prof. 
Williams the question, ‘‘Are the converts treacherous?” 
He answered, ‘‘We always accept them with a 
sanctified suspicion! ‘We have,’ he said, ‘‘Pick- 
ers, charged with the duty of picking out those who 
we have reason to believe will stand.”’ 

This answer given by one who had been a faithful 
missionary in the very heart of China for thirty-four 
years, lets in a flood of light on the dark situation. 
It is worth more than many books or a long list of 
flaming missionary reports. We see clearly that 
these fifty or one hundred thousand converts, are, as 
a rule, utterly unreliable, and therefore an absolute 
injury to any good cause. Not wonderful that the 
intelligent are shut out. Even in this country, if a 
minister goes to a city to found a church and all his 
first converts belong to the lowest element of society, 
and he must needs receive them ‘‘weth a sanctified 
suspicion,” his enterprise is doomed. Asa matter of 
fact, the great heart of China’s four hundred million 


44 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


has not been touched by the conversion of a few of 
its most ignorant and corrupt people. 

Besides, this treachery on the part of converts, 
which has been the sad experience of all missionaries, 
is based on the fact that their ignorance makes it 
psychologically impossible for them to comprehend 
the basic truths of the gospel. A noble and reliable 
Christian szaxhood must be built on the foundation of 
intelligence, and a belief in one God, the very things 
of which they are utterly destitute. Even in this 
country of monotheism, if Christianity be introduced 
among a very ignorant people, such as the colored 
race of the extreme South, it has but little influence 
by way of making them stable and reliable, but mani- 
fests itself mainly in superstition, ritualism, external 
demonstrations, and under the influence of such 
ignorance grows more and more grotesque. As 
everybody knows this, the great method has been 
and is now, to educate the blacks of the South and 
thus pioneer a religion of intelligence, honesty, and 
of noble manhood. 

In further proof of the correctness of this line of 
thought, I quote from Henry Thomas Buckle, who 
has written two large volumes on ‘Civilization in Eng- 
land.” In second volume, page 184, he says, ‘“‘We 
may as well expect that the seed should quicken in 
the barren rock, as that a mild and philosophical re- 
ligion should be established among ignorant savages. 
Of this, innumerable experiments have been made, 
and always with the same result. | Men of excellent 
intentions and full of a fervent, though mistaken zeal, 
have been, and still are, attempting to propagate their 


THE PITIFUL OUTCOME. 45 


own religion among the inhabitants of barbarous 
countries. By strenuous and unremitting activity, 
they have in many cases persuaded savage com- 
munities to make a profession of the Christian re- 
ligion. But whoever will. compare the triumphant 
reports of missionaries with the long chain of evi- 
dence supplied by competent travelers, will soon find 
that such profession is only nominal, and that these 
ignorant tribes have adopted the ceremonies of the 
new religion, but have by no means adopted the re- 
ligion itself. They may be baptized; they may take 
the sacrament; they may flock to the church! All this 
they may do and yet be as far removed from the 
spirit of Christianity as when they bowed the knee 
before their former idols. The rites and forms of a 
religion lie on the surface; they are at once seen; 
they are quickly learned by those who are unable to 
penetrate to that which lies beneath. It is the deep- 
er and zward change which alone is durable; and 
this the savage can never experience while he is sunk 
in ignorance. After a careful study of the condition 
of barbarous nations, we do most confidently assert, 
that there is no well-attested case of any people 
being permanently converted to Christianity, except 
in those very few instances where missionaries, being 
men of knowledge as well as piety, have familiarized 
the savage with habits of thought, and by thus stimu- 
lating his intellect have prepared him for the re- 
ception of those religious principles, which, without 
such stimulus, he could never have understood.”’ 
Here we have the accumulated wisdom of a care- 
ful historian bearing testimony to the fact that intel- 


46 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


ligence must pioneer Christianity, else Christianity, 
of necessity, will utterly fail to accomplish the sub- 
lime end of its divine appointment. Unlike any 
other religion known to the race, Christianity was or- 
dained of God to follow the lead of the highest intel- 
lectual enlightenment and the common sense of the 
common people who believe in God. And any 
human effort at putting such religion in the lead of 
ignorance, is to reverse the divine order, and must 
result in disaster. The entire trend of history proves 
the truth of this remark. ; 

England, for example, has had control over all 
India for one hundred and forty three years. She 
entered upon the stupendous task of Christianizing 
that once famous Empire. It is true, her ninety 
thousand bayonets have put a stop to Thugism, and 
many outlandish practices of that ignorant and super- 
stitious people; and while a few of the ‘‘baser sort” 
have been converted, yet the great moral and reli- 
gious heart of that over three hundred million of semi- 
barbarians, has not been touched by a system of reli- 
gious truth which they utterly fail to comprehend. 
The same is true of all the provinces of the British. 
Empire, save those whose intelligence, like that of 
Canada, could grasp the matchless thought of God as 
universal Father, man as universal brother. 

If there were such a thing as ‘‘convincing one 
against his will,” which is hardly possible, touching 
the absolute necessity of sending the Christian school- 
teacher first and the gospel minister later on, cer- 
tainly such a one would be convinced if only he 
would cut off previous vision, and behold, with 


THE PITIFUL OUTCOME. 47 


steady gaze the panoramic picture of awful desolation 
which is now passing in review before God, angels 
and men, among our once peaceful brethren of the 
Celestial Empire, all because of human mistakes. 

When a semi-barbarous people have a religion 
suited to their ignorance, it is not only a gross in- 
justice ‘to thrust upon them a religion infinitely 
beyond their comprehension, but it works 722 upon 
the religion itself. For example, when Christianity 
was first introduced into Europe, which was then 
inhabited by Romans and foreigners, all of whom 
were ignorant, superstitious and idolatrous, it soon 
spread over nearly the entire country. But in the 
light of ecclesiastical history it may be safely said, 
that Christianity not only failed to be of any benefit 
to the people, but itself was dragged down to the 
level of stupid ignorance. Buckle says, ‘‘It was in 
vain that Christianity taught a simple doctrine, and 
enjoined a simple worship. The new religion was 
corrupted by the old follies. The adoration of zdols 
was succeeded by the adoration of saints; the wor- 
ship of the Vzvgin was substituted for the worship of 
Cybele, (the mother of gods.) Pagan ceremonies 
were established in Christian churches; not only the 
mummeries of idolatry, but its doctrines, were quickly 
added, and were incorporated and worked into the 
new religion, until, after the lapse of a few genera- 
tions, Christianity exhibited such an outlandish and 
hideous form, that its best features were lost, and the 
lineaments of its earlier loveliness altogether de- 
stroyed.” Hence, came the ‘‘Dark Ages.”’ 

The ‘‘zeal without knowledge,” which attempted 


48 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


to build up Christian civilization in Europe on the 
foundation of polytheism, idolatry and ignorant super- 
stition, resulted in a most stupendous failure.  Chris- 
tianity with its lofty truths of love and righteousness, 
was so dragged down to the level of barbarism, that 
itself became one of the most cruel things that ever 
dishonored God or cursed humanity. Its doctrines 
and its precepts, as taught by the priesthood, be- 
came so God-dishonoring and soul-destroying, that in 
the providence of God, as it would seem, Moham- 
medanism was called to the task of well-nigh sweeping 
/duch Cristianity out of Europe. 

-! Chambers’ Encyclopedia says: ‘‘Broadly speaking, 
the Mohammedans may be said to have been the 
enlightened teachers of barbarous Europe from the 
gth to the 13th century.” But for Mohammed, who, 
with a burning enthusiasm, cried, ‘‘There is no god 
but God,” it would seem that the corruption of the 
church would have robbed Christianity of the doc- 
trine of monotheism, and the moral and religious 
wreck and ruin of the ‘‘Dark Ages” would have 
swept the last vestige of intelligence from the 
country. Disregarding God’s law of preparation and 
rushing, in among those ignorant hordes of barba- 
rians, instead of Christianizing Europe, Christianity 

itself became paganized. 

In the light of history, therefore, as well as that of 
mental philosophy, it would be safe to predict that 
if China’s four hundred million of polytheistic tdolaters 
were all converted to Christianity in a day, it would 
only result in dragging Christianity down to the level 

ie their ignorant superstition. It would be an -un 


THE PITIFUL OUTCOME. 49 


tellable calamity to the religion of love. Philo- 
sophical necessity imperatively requires that we first 
drive out the darkness of polytheism, which has been 
accumulating for more than a thousand years, by 
intellectual enlightment, and thus prepare the way 
for the coming of monotheism, and of righteousness, 
founded upon the matchless law of love, which from 
every standpoint of human’ thinking, challenges the 
highest, deepest and broadest thought of which the 
human mind is capable. 

To make good the proposition that the missionary 
work in China, during the last one hundred years, has 
resulted in worse than a failure, let us examine the 
fruits of that faithful but misdirected labor a little 
further. From the most reliable accounts, it would 
seem that of the one hundred thousand converts, 
about forty thousand have been massacred during the 
last twelve months, while the other sixty thousand 
have been deserted by the missionaries, and left to 
the mercy of an infuriated mob. Professor Williams 
gave a most thrilling account of the daring adven- 
tures and narrow escapes he had to save himself from 
cruel death. When asked, ‘‘What became of the 
converts you had gathered during the thirty-four 
years of missionary work?” he replied, ‘I advised 
them to take care of themselves. Some were massa- , 
cred, while others, as I learned, escaped to the 
mountains.”’ What a sad finish! 

It looks hard, but it was the best he could ca 
For while he was at liberty to flee to America for 
refuge, he had no sz2gh¢ to bring his converts with 
him. TZhzs country would not have them. All he ( 


4 


50 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


could do, therefore, was to leave the poor, ignorant, 
helpless souls in the Chinese slaughter-house. 

Forty thousand dead! Sixty thousand denied a 
refuge from cruel death!! Is this the only product 
of a hundred years of honest toil? It is marvel- 
ously manifest that this is only a small part of the 
heart-sickening picture. Think of the united armies 
of the civilized world, which for months have been 
marauding over that once peaceful and comparatively 
happy country; and from trustworthy reports, loot- 
ing property, murdering the innocent, assaulting 
virtue, and committing inhuman outrages at the sight 
of which none but devils may laugh, while angels 
must weep and good men hide for very shame. This 
is the inauguration of the 20th century, all done in 
the sweet name of cevzlzzation!! What a misnomer ! 
What a colossal, but unintentional, fraud! ! 

Need we wonder that our peacefully inclined hu- 
man beings of the Celestial Empire, look upon us as 
“Foreign Devils?” It is safe to say that they are 
utterly ignorant of Christianity per se, pure and 
simple! They see Christianity only from the stand- 
point of their own bitter experience. Of all the re- 
ligions of which they have heard, ours must appear 
to them the most despisable. Nor need we hope 
that the deep-rooted prejudice which has been 
formed in the Chinese mind, touching the cruel char- 
acter of our religion, will be readily removed. If it 
required a century to convert a few of the more de- 
graded, certainly it will take more than another one 
hundred years to undo what we have done for the 
more intelligent masses. Zo untie the knot that we 


THE PITIFUL OUTCOME. 51 


have tied, and thus solve the mysterious problem of how 
to restore the confidence they have lost, will be the patient 
and loving service of centuries to come. As he must of 
necessity meet the history that is now being written 
on the Chinese mind, pity, therefore, the missionary 
who goes to China henceforth ! ! 

(2) But on every hand we are told that the blood 
of those forty thousand converts, and that of the 
missionaries, is the blood of martyrs and as such, it is 
the seed of Christianity. Here again we need care- 
fully to analyze this common saying. First, what 
constitutes a martyr? All will agree that a martyr is 
one who willingly surrenders his life, rather than for- 
sware his allegiance to his religion! He is one who 
makes a /fvee choice between surrendering his reli- 
gious faith or submitting to death. Second, he is 
mot a martyr, though he be slain while fighting to 
the bitter end. He is zot a martyr who gets killed 
while seeking to kill his brother. 

With this conceded definition of the term martyr, 
it would seem that but little martyr’s blood has been 
shed in all this lamentable conflict! It has gone 
upon the principle of ‘‘give and take,” kill or get 
killed. Prof. Williams said that he and his comrades 
armed themselves with knives and guns and pro- 
posed to fight to a finish. Is that the act of a 
martyr? We may not say that this was not right, 
nor that under the circumstances we should 
have done otherwise, but it is clearly manifest 
that such fighting, pro and con, is the spzrz¢ of the 
world and has no kinship to the spirit of the martyr. 

Had all those missionaries and their converts been 


52 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


put to the /est of renouncing the faith or submitting 
to death, and without resistance they had decided 
that rather than betray the loving Christ, they had 
gone to the rack, the faggot, and to cruel death, in 
: that event it had been the ‘‘blood of martyrs,” which, 
as Clement of Alexandria, at the close of the second 
century, said, ‘‘is the seed of Christianity;’’ but as 
. no such test, in a general way, was made and no 
} such sacrifice offered, it seems almost sacrilegious, in 
such connection, to talk about the blood of martyrs 
being the seed of Christianity. 

While the world with repentant heart for nearly two 
thousand years has been thinking of the innocent 
| suffering of such martyrs as Matthew, Mark, Luke, 

Peter, Paul, and thousands of others who offered their 

blood as a willing sacrifice to seal their loving faith, we 

apprehend that the people of the Celestial Empire 
will think of this blood of foreigners with indignation 
and wrath. Instead of being the ‘‘seed of Christi- 
anity,’’ with them it will be the seed of bitter hate 
for long years to come. 

ii (a) But it is said, as if that was all of it, that the 

i Boxers are responsible for all this outrageous devas- 

‘tation and bloodshed. It is true that the Boxers 
touched off the magazine. But the question back of 
it, and the one most important to answer is, who 

_; constructed the magazine? We are to remember 

‘/’ that the Chinese Empire had over four hundred mil- 
lion inhabitants; that this vast number of people had 
lived in peace among themselves for a thousand 
' years; that they tilled the soil and earned their bread 
as no such united number had ever been known to 


THE PITIFUL OUTCOME. 53 


do; they had a religion, the decalogue of which pre- 
sented a system of morals next equal to that of 
Moses, and in one respect it went beyond it, in that 
it emphasized the commandment, ‘‘Thou shalt take 
no intoxicating drinks;” by the edict of the Em- 
peror the use of opium was forbidden, and even the 
poppy tree was not suffered to grow. In the face of 
all this England, over one hundred years ago, sent 
Protestant missionaries to Christianize China. Alas! 
alas!! she sent ship loads of tobacco, opium and 
rum, to curse the Empire. What an outrage! 

The English Christian (?) merchants sought to con- 
vince the government that to traffic in these things 
would be a source of revenue, to which the Em- 
peror replied, ‘‘God forbid that I should enrich the 
treasury of my country by the crimes of my people.” 
What a rebuke to our boasted civilization! To the 
everlasting disgrace of a professed Christian country 
be it said, England forced this damnable traffic on 
China, which for over a hundred years has wrought 
wreck and ruin for that once peaceful Empire. After 


: 


( 


- 


thirty-four years of observation, Prof. Williams gives ° 
it as his opinion that fifty per cent. of the people of | 


China are slaves to the use of opium, and that they 
are the most wretched beings on earth. The im- 
measurable outrages perpetrated upon China during 
the 19th century, by Western civilization, is known 
only to God! 

In this connection, if we would come to a just con- 
clusion, we should remember that those Boxers were 
the ones most devoted to the Buddhist religion. They 
are the ones that were not influenced by missionary 


( 


( 


oe 


54 : THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


effort, and therefore, knew absolutely nothing of 
Christianity per se, pure and simple. For this reason 
they regarded ali foreigners alike. Some were there 
to rob them of their money, while others were there 
to rob them of their religion, and all were there as 
‘Foreign Devils.” Being those of most intelligence 
they could see that foreign trade and foreign influ- 
ence had wrought the ruin of their country. As 
from their point of view they were being robbed of 
all that they held sacred and dear on earth,—and 
with the view of saving a remnant from the awful 
wreck and ruin that was going on, they made a last 
desperate effort to drive the foreigners from, their 
country. J wonder tf, under the circumstances, we, 
though more enlightened, would have done differently ! 

It is thus clearly seen that while the Boxers pre- 
cipitated this disgraceful scene which is passing in 
review before God, angels and men, yet the real 
cause of all the trouble in the Orient is found in the 
unwise and wicked methods of the Occident. Had 
we recognized the childhood condition of those Celes- 
tials, and proceeded to ¢each and help those innocent 
but ignorant people, and thus exhibited the spirit of 
the true Samaritan, think you that the best people of 
that Empire had turned Boxers? No, a thousand 
times zo. It is recorded in heaven and written on 
earth, as with a pen of steel dipped in blood, that 
nothing, absolutely nothing but the mismanagement 
and treachery of the West toward the East, have in- 
volved the nations of the world in cruel war. 

(3) Again, we are told that it was politics and 
business and not religion that enraged the Boxers! 


THE PITIFUL OUTCOME, 55 


—that it was diplomatic scheming and trickery iy 
trade, and not the work of missionaries that 
brought on this bloody revolution! A little unbiased 
analysis will clearly exhibit the fact that both thes 
foreign elements were in the mind of the Boxers 
when they took life in one hand, and as they con- 
ceived, their country’s cause in the other. That their 
wrath was kindled against the national and trade 
schemers, who they believed were there to rob them 
of their country, their social and political rights, is 
evidenced in the fact that they sought to massacre 
them indiscriminately! Had they not felt that they 
were a dangerous element to their commonwealth, 
doubtless they had spared them as confederates. 
That they had a bitter, it may have been a secret, 
hatred toward the missionary, is seen (a) in the fact 
that the better class, the Boxers, ostracized the mis- 
sionary, and would have nothing to do with his reli- 
gion, (b) While thus refusing even to put themselves 
under the influence of this foreign religion, it is evi- 
dent that they looked upon the missionary as being 
there for the purpose of undermining the very pillars 
of their sacred temple. (c) That they regarded the 
missionary as an enemy and not a friend to the social 
and religious institutions of the Empire, is clearly seen 
in the fact that when they decided to kill he was not 
made an exception. (d) If religion had nothing to 
do with the uprising, why did the Boxers slay forty 
thousand of their own countrymen, for no other rea- 
son than that they had adopted a foreign religion? 
The herculean effort that is now being made to 
shift responsibility, reminds one of the old fable of 


56 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


the ‘‘mountain in labor.” In the mind of an in- 
telligent historian it counts for nothing. In the light 
of past and current events it must be obvious to the 
unbiased thinker, that all the outrages upon virtue, 
the destruction of life and property, and the con- 
fusion of the nations of the world have grown out of 
the simple fact that the western half of humanity 
has sought to force upon the eastern half a religion 
and a civilization which it could not comprehend, 
and therefore did not want, and which it regards as 
infinitely beneath its own. 

When we behold the awful desolation of that vast 
empire, and hear the tramp, tramp of the united 
armies of the world, when all this panorama of awful 
destruction passes in pitiful review, we submit, in 
the spirit of human sympathy, if the time has not 
come when the Christian world should ca// a halt, 
and go upon its knees and earnestly inquire of God 
as to the divine methods of saving the heathen? May 
the great Father give us ‘‘The wisdom that is from 
above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, 
easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits.” 


HOME MISSIONS. 57 


(SECTION VII) 


Home WMiissions. 


(1) When the man of sense, reason and sym- 
pathetic spirit thinks on the one hand of the great 
Catholic church of Europe and America, and the 
still greater Protestant church of these countries, 
and reflects not only on their great lack of sympathy 
and co-operation, but their oft-repeated criticisms 
and even bitter antagonisms; and when reflection 
goes on to compass the divisions, conflicting creeds, 
and great lack of hearty fellowship among the differ- 
ent sects of Protestantism; when all this heart- 
sickening history passes in panoramic view, and he 
thinks, too, of the prayer of the world’s dying Re- 
deemer for the unity of His disciples; under such re- 
flection every noble impulse of his being arises in its 
majesty lovingly to protest against such unholy 
division. Certainly he must feel that the one all- 
absorbing demand of the age is, that Chrzstzanity be 
Christianized by the unifying spirit of love. 

When we behold Jesus in the compass of His 
mighty thought, the sweetness of his matchless 
speech, and the omnipotence of his holy and beau- 
tiful life; when such sublime and heavenly character 
passes in review, we realize that, though He lived 


58 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


two thousand years ago, He is, nevertheless, ten 
thousand years in advance of our times. What hu- 
manity needs, therefore, is not that we send mission- 
aries to China, but that the Catholics and Protestants 
of Europe and America, enter with sanctified en- 
thusiasm upon the work of ‘‘Home Missions.”’ Nor 
should this work of Christian unification cease, though 
it take another two thousand years, until every dis- 
ciple shall have the recognized right to think as God 
may help him to think, and until this one unified 
church shall extend to him universal fellowship, not 
because of what he chances to ¢zmwk on questions of 
disputed theology, but for the one sublime reason 
that he manifests the spirit of our loving Lord, in the 
absence of which he is none of His. 

When the church is thus of ‘‘one accord,” and of 
one spirit, it will be in the blessed condition of the 
twelve disciples, and like them, ready to obey the 
command, ‘‘Go ye into all the (orderly) world and 
preach the gospel.’”’ Until the church is thus of one 
accord and prepared to present a solid front, it will 
be better for China as well as for the religion of love, 
that we stay at home and not go among other peo- 
ple to establish antagonistic creeds, build up sectism, 
and thus divide the church of the living God! Oh! 
that the disintegrated church could but see its own 
pitiful plight as the loving Father must see it! 

(2) Not only does the church with its unholy 
criticisms and disgraceful divisions, demand home 
mission work, but the wretched condition of millions 
of our own citizens cries loudly for help. We need 
only look at the filth of our own door yard to see at 


HOME MISSIONS. 59 


a glance that if we act wisely and prudently, we 
have no time to go abroad. Only think of the filth, 
degradation and misery of the millions in our towns 
and cities who were nursed at the breasts of Christian 
mothers, nurtured in Christian homes and only wait- 
ing to be touched into manhood by the hearty 
sympathy of our loving religion. In every city, 
town, hamlet and country in this great Republic, 
there is a wide-open door, a hearty welcome, and the 
promise of a rich harvest. 

Though a nation catalogued as Chrzstzan, we num- 
ber more devils in human form than any other nation 
on this earth. To carry the gospel, therefore, ten 
thousand miles to a people who have a religion vastly 
better than they are, and who, as yet, are too ignorant 
at all to comprehend ours, while multiplied thou- 
sands all about us who were brought up under the 
gospel, and who have no other religion, are perishing 
for the ‘‘Bread of Life,’’ seems tenfold more unrea- 
sonable than for a mother to spend her time looking 
after the interests of other people’s children to the 
utter neglect of her own famishing household. 

Dr. Parkhurst, under the head of ‘‘The Devil’s 
High School in New York,” took an occasion to say, 
‘What more flamboyant style of idiocy can our 
churches and missionary boards devise than to raise 
millions for the conversion of poor sinners in India 
and Japan, and. yet make no desperate effort to close 
up the mills of Satan that are grinding out their hell- 
ish grist here in our own streets and under the drip- 
pings of our sanctuaries?’ Echo answers, ‘‘What!”’ 

As no such hordes of desperate sinners as are in 


60 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


New York, Chicago, and other cities of the United 
States, can be found anywhere else on God’s beautiful 
earth, why are we not bending our every energy to 
save the lost of our own great American family, and 
thus have at least one nation Christian, not only in 
name but in the sweet spirit of universal helpfulness? 

As long as the fact remains that the American 
Republic has more desperately wicked men just now 
than have cursed China in two thousand years, just 
so long the most intelligent people of the Celestial 
Empire will continue to say, ‘‘Physician, heal thyself.” 

But we are gravely told that the lost people of 
America have rejected the offers of the gospel, and 
for this reason, lo! we turn to the Chinese!! To 
illustrate this proposition, an earnest advocate of for- 
eign missions, before a large congregation, cited the 
case of a most skilful physician entering a large hos- 
pital filled with the sick and dying; he offered his 
medicine to one and another, but each and all refused 
his helping hand. Just beyond was another hospital, 
the suffering inmates of which were only too glad 
to welcome the doctor and to be cured of their ail- 
ments; in such case what is the duty of the physician? 
This illustration was cheered to the echo. 

It is easy to be entirely misled by an illustration 
which utterly fails to illustrate. There is not the 
slightest analogy between the figure and the fact de- 
signed to be prefigured. The thirty-seven million 
people, more or less, who are in the sin-sick hospital 
of America have not been made to understand that 
the gospel of love presents an antidote to their awful 
ailments, much less have they refused the remedy 


HOME MISSIONS 61 


when once pointed out. Moreover, there are multi- 
plied thousands who were born and are growing up 
amid the slums and low dives of the great cities, who 
have never seen a Bible or heard a gospel sermon. 
In the backwoods country, too, especially in the 
mountains of the long range of the Alleghenies, there 
are unnumbered hosts of people who have never 
heard the sweet story of ‘‘Jesus and His love.” 

Besides, and what needs to be emphasized, these 
people of no opportunities have no established reli- 
gion, and no language but ours, and are, therefore, 
only too glad to open their eyes to the light of intel- 
ligence. In proof of this statement Berea College, of 
Berea, Ky., stands as an object lesson. During the 
last few years thousands of these ignorant moun- 
taineers have flocked to this Mecca that they might 
be trained up into Christian manhood. No country 
on the globe presents such a field for missionary 
work as does the Republic of America. If the mis- 
sionary’s heart yearns to save souls he need not cross 
the seas, they are perishing all about him. ‘‘Con- 
sistency, thou art a jewel.”’ 

The other half of the illustration is equally mis- 
leading. The four hundred million of Celestials are 
not overly inclined to accept the medicine of their 
own physicians, much less are they clamoring for that 
of ours. In proof of this double statement we need 
only look at the degraded condition of Chinese soci- 
ety and compare it with the lofty standard of morals _ 
set up by the religion of the Empire; and see fur- 
ther, how utterly indifferent they are to the procla- 
mation of the gospel as presented by our faithful 


62 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


missionaries. Statistics will clearly show that it re- 
quires vastly less money, less labor and sacrifice to 
make Christians out of lost Americans than it does to 
convert Chinamen, who after they are converted, as 
has been shown, present no better type of manhood 
than before. (See section IX, p. 82.) 

Moreover, we have in the United States about nine 
million of the African race, who have been most 
shamefully treated and degraded. For more than one 
hundred years they bent their back to the vile service 
of the Christian (?) taskmaster, with no rights that 
others felt bound to respect. They were even denied 
the privilege of learning how to read, that they 
might thus be kept in perpetual slavery. All done in 
the name of a religion of love! Not wonderful that 
they are comparatively ignorant and superstitious. 

Besides, this is their native land; they have no 
country but this; no language but ours; and no hope 
of an exalted manhood but from the hand that 
crushed them. A more pitiful cry for help never 
saluted the ear of Christian America. There is not 
to be found on this round earth another nine million 
of souls who present such a wide-open door, who 
would give such a hearty welcome, and who promise 
such an abundant harvest, as do these nine million of 
our own countrymen, for whose ostracized condition 
we are responsible before God. 

All are agreed that the immortal Booker T. Wash- 
ington has caught the divine method of Christianiz- 
ing a degraded people. His one main purpose is to 
give his people zxdustrial and intellectual culture, and 
thus lay the foundation for a religion of intelligence. 


HOME MISSIONS. 63 


Our missionaries would do well to take lessons from 
this ex slave, this man of God, as to a better method 
of Christianizing China. 

Contrast the missionary work in the South with 
that of China, and you will learn the mind of the 
Spirit. Since slavery was abolished hundreds of 
Christian school-teachers and missionaries, and mil- 
lions of money have gone into the Southland, with 
the most gratifying results. These Christian teachers 
and missionaries were not handicapped by a foreign 
language, a foreign religion, or a foreign civilization, 
but they were received with open arms by those who 
were hungering and thirsting for the superior advan- 
tages of theirown countrymen. From the start they 
reached the most intelligent of the colored people, 
and through them they gave a mighty uplift to the 
entire African race. The very thing which has not 
been done in China. 

It is safe to say that since the world began, no race 
of people ever made such long and rapid strides 
along lines of Christian civilization as the African 
race has made during the last thirty-five years. And 
what they have done is only prophetic of what they 
will do if only we are true to those whom the Father 
has left to our care. If we hada united church we 
could do vastly better. 

In wide contrast with this home field of matchless 
opportunity and good results, think of those Mon- 
golians on the other side of the earth, with their own 
country, their own language, their own religion, their 
own civilization, and with a profound desire that we 
stay at home until we are invited. 


64 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


In view of the results of the last one hundred years 
of missionary work in China, it must be obvious to 
every unbiased mind, that it is worse than useless to 
give another dollar or send another missionary to the 
Celestial Empire until some new method is adopted, 
that will secure the blessing of God, and thus give 
promise of success. As there is no ‘‘evidence of 
success like success,’’ so there is no evidence of bad 
methods like bad results. It is bad enough that all 
the converts should be either slaughtered or scat- 
tered; worse still, that the whole world should be in 
an uproar of cruel war. 

In the face of all this sorrowful outcome, we are 
told that ‘‘God has abundantly blessed the missionary 
work in China!”” In the presence of all the tangible 
evidence in the case, can there be a statement more 
absurd? If what has come to pass in China is proof 
of the divine pleasure, can we imagine any outcome 
that would prove the divine displeasure? Good effect 
must be in evidence, else common sense will not 
believe that God has blessed the cause. God- 
appointed means are attended with God-honoring 
results. But as no good ‘‘results” are in evidence, it 
is marvelously manifest that the ‘‘means’”’ were not 
of divine appointment. 


HOW SHALL CHINA BE CHISTIANIZED? 65 


SECTION (VIII) 
How Shall China be Christianized? 


At the end of more than one hundred years of 
honest toil, which has resulted in infinitely worse 
than an utter failure, the problem which now con- 
fronts Europe and America is, What is the divine 
method by which the people of China shall be lifted 
from the depths of idolatry into the lofty heights of 
the loving worship of the ‘‘one God and Father of 
us all”? In attempting to answer this matchless 
question we should not only learn from past sad ex- 
perience, but we should especially seek to know the 
mind of God in his dealing with the infancy of our 
race. 

The thread of thought that has run through the 
preceding line of reasoning has been that of prepara- 
tion. Certainly it must be apparent to the close 
observer of divine affairs, that this law of preparation 
has been the central and fundamental law by which 
God has governed His animate and inanimate uni- 
verse. . It is safe to say that we will never Christian- 
ize China until we recognize her unprepared condi- 
tion, and then begin to work after the divine pattern 
by beginning at the dotfom and training upward, and 


not at the dof, as heretofore, and training downward! 
5 


66 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


(1) As we are to deal with a country that is 
wholly given to polytheism and idolatry, and has 
been for more than a thousand years, we shall make 
no mistake if only we pattern after God’s method of 
dealing with that kind of people! When the world 
was given to the belief and worship of many gods, 
Infinite Wisdom did not send a missionary to tell 
these ignorant people that ‘‘God so loved the world.” 
Such a course would have been to ‘‘begin at the 
top.” Proposing to ‘‘train upward,’”’ Omniscience 
sent Moses to proclaim the foundation truth, ‘‘Hear, 
O Israel, the Lord our God is one God.” In the 
face of polytheism and idolatry, Moses said nothing 
of God as universal Father: this had been to ‘‘cast 
pearls before swine.’”’ Only to those who compre- 
hended the truth of monotheism, the thought of one 
God, and who were thus prepared, did he teach the 
duty of loving God. Until we adopt this divine 
method of getting China ready for the final message, 
‘God is love,’”’ we need hope for nothing but disaster 
after disaster. 

(2) From the foregoing it must be obvious that 
our first work in China is one of elimination. We 
must work after the divine ideal and first drive from 
the Chinese mind the stupid ignorance of ‘‘lords 
many and gods many,” and the long-fixed habit of 
worshiping these tutelary imps of the imagination. 
Nor is this an easy task. It is a habit as well-nigh 
fixed as the spots on the leopard. As it is easier by 
far to teach the child to tell the truth than it isto 
get the fourteen-year-old boy to quit the habit of 
lying, so the work of getting the Chinaman to stop 


HOW SHALL CHINA BE CHRISTIANIZED? 67 


worshiping his idol is vastly greater than if he had no 
religion at all. But as this is an absolute necessity, 
before he can learn to love God, as seen in the 
Father’s methods, and as taught in mental philoso- 
phy, it must therefore be done frst even though it 
require a thousand years of faithful service. 

(a) We, as Anglo-Saxons, as it would seem, need 
only hope to accomplish this great work of edzmina- 
tion by teaching them our own language. It seems 
like worse than wasted time for an Englishman to go 
to China on the mission of civilization and first 
devote much precious time to the study of an uuczv- 
tlized language! Indeed, the Chinese monosyllabic, 
hieroglyphic speech is hardly to be catalogued as a 
language. With its more than forty different dialects, 
and its innumerable guttural notes and no alphabet, 
it is the most poverty stricken language on earth. 

For civilization, therefore, to stop to study the 
miserable speech of heathenism, is to reverse the 
wheels of progress. The aggregation of results from 
the beginning of human history until now, clearly 
indicates the final unity and universal sympathy of the 
race of mankind. The far off coming day of the ab- 
solute oneness of mankind implies wuzty of language. 
The English language, because of its homogeneity of 
expression, the perfection of its philosophy, and its 
unparalleled progress, is pointed to as ¢hé language 
which is to become as widespread and as universal 
as the race of mankind. If not, then it would seem 
that the apex of the pyramid of all speech is not the 
point toward which the lines of the shaft converge. 

Though in its infancy, it is, nevertheless, the giant 


68 THE CHINESE PROBLEM, 


of all the ages. The English language is to-day the 
fathomless fountain into which the rich streams of 
the Orient and Occident have been pouring their 
floods of art, philosophy, invention, discovery, liter- 
ature, in prose and poetry, during the last six hun- 
dred years. The way, therefore, for the English to 
civilize China, Persia, Egypt, Africa, or the islands of 
the sea, is to begin by teaching them our language 
which illustrates the universal law of Unzty zn Diversity. 

Our new possessions in’ the Orient just now pre- 

sent an object lesson eminently worthy of study. 
} (!) The peoples of the Philippine-Archipelago have 
languages of their own, Tagalese and Bisayan, which 
are better than that of China. Like that of the 
Celestials, however, their languages have degenerated 
and taken on many silly dialects. Yet enough of 
the features of the old native tongues are left to war- 
rant the remark that they are superior to the mono- 
syllabic, hieroglyphic speech of the Chinese. 

(!!) Since Spain first took possession of these 
islands in the name of its’ king, the lofty truths of 
Christianity have been the principal religion taught. 
But Christianity among these ignorant islanders has 
proved to be too exalted for!their comprehension. 
What happened in Europe during the middle or 
‘‘dark ages’”’ has been repeated by the half-barbarians 
of the Archipelago, namely, while Christianity has 
proved to be utterly useless to the people, its 
sublimely beautiful truths have been dragged down 
to the level of their stupid ignorance. 

(!!!) The point to be remembered is, that the 
United States government, being entirely free from 


HOW SHALL CHINA BE CHRISTIANIZED? 69 


the blinding spirit of sectism, in its efforts to civilize 
these far-off peoples, has proposed to begin at the 
bottom. With a view to preparation, and for the 
wise purpose of laying a rock foundation, deep and 
broad, for the mighty temple of our Christian civili- 
zation, and not the sandy base of a heathenish 
speech, our government has recently decided to send 
a thousand school-teachers, charged with the duty ot 
entirely ignoring their languages, and of training 
those natives strictly in the use of the English. If 
the authorities at Washington would send ten 
thousand more school-teachers, the ‘‘common people’”’ 
would respond, ‘‘Amen.” . 

With no disposition to make proselytes, the gov- 
ernment has recognized the obvious fact, that what 
those benighted countrymen need, and must have, is 
‘intellectual enlightenment.’’ While these ignorant 
people have no religion but that entitled ‘‘Christian,” 
yet common sense sees at a glance, that Christianity 
can make no progress until the people have been 
trained up into an intelligence that will make it pos- 
sible for them to comprehend and appreciate the 
exalted truths of the gospel. But for the worship 
of the missionary fetish we might hope that mission- 
ary boards would learn a new method from this great 
non-sectarian movement of the government. 

(b) Recognizing the fact that the Chinese mind 
during the ages has become so fossilized by the super- 
stition of a false religion that it is next to impossible to 
impress it with the lofty truths of the gospel, it seems 
wise to begin with the c/z/dren. In virtue of the 


stupendous undertaking of changing the long con- 
6 


7O THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


tinued habit of polytheistic and idolatrous thinking, 
the philosophical method is to leave the adults, 
whose minds are crystallized, and give our attention 
mainly to those whose habits are not yet fixed. 
Even in this country we have learned, after many, 
many sad /azlures, that the only way to have a 
nation of native born Christians, is by the prayer- 
ful training of the children from infancy to man- 
hood. ‘Suffer little children to come unto Me.” 

Arrogant infidelity and bald atheism are just now 
completely balked in the presence of the greatly 
increased and rapidly increasing hosts of Sabbath 
school children, Christian Endeavorers and Epworth 
Leaguers. Anticipating their inevitable Waterloo, 
atheists are fleeing from their guns and taking shelter 
under the white flag of Agnosticism, ‘‘I don’t know, 
you don’t know.”” Among all the galaxy of stars, 
outside the ‘‘Star of Bethlehem,” no one inspires 
such hope of a unified church and a saved world, as 
does that of the millions of children who are now 
being trained in the loving school of Christ. 

The one great method of converting China to a 
civilization, based on the doctrine of God as Father, 
. is in the training of its children to speak our tongue, 
to understand our literature, to study our scholarship, 
the basic truth of which is one Almighty Father, and 
thus step by step, lead them up to that partly to be 
understood but zwmeasurable truth, ‘‘God zs Love.”’ 

(c) We should, therefore, send, not the infidel 
or the agnostic, much less the atheist, but, the quali- 
fied Christian school-teacher. Beginning thus with 
the twigs of our humanity, we might hope that by 


HOW SHALL CHINA BE CHRISTIANIZED? 71 


and by we shall have a great tree loaded with ripe 
fruit. While it seems to be a slow and tardy way, it 
is, nevertheless, God’s way. Jt would be our way but 
for our haste, which makes waste, and is a ‘‘zeal with- 
out knowledge.’’ While this method of the Christian 
school-teacher before the missionary, the  school- 
house before the temple, promises nothing for sect- 
ism, it, nevertheless, predicts a wonderful uplift for 
the people of China. 

Nor would this system of Christian benevolence 
excite any prejudice in the minds of those Celestials! 
While, as we have shown, the leading minds of China 
are not favorably influenced by our religion, they are, 
nevertheless, strongly inclined to our superior schol- 
arship. Speaking of the introduction of our scientific 
works, Chamber’s Encyclopedia has this to say, ‘It 
is worthy of remark that these books were eagerly 
sought after and excited a deep interest among their 
litera.” Their leading men are frank to ac- 
knowledge that our invention, our discovery, our 
language, and our scholarship, are far in advance of 
theirs. We thus have a wide-open door to enter 
China, especially as kindergarten teachers charged 
with the high duty of training the children along 
lines of sense and reason, of ethics and exalted man- 
hood, and that, too, in our own language. 

From all this it would seem like folly intensified 
for our missionaries to go to China first to learn their 
semi-barbarous language, and then with but a mere 
smattering of that monosyllabic tongue, stand up to 
preach the gospel to a crowd whose chief business 
seems to be to smoke and to criticise the dress, the 


72 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


manner and the bad pronunciation of the preacher. 
Professor Haner, the missionary to whom reference 
has been made, in his experience before a smoking 
crowd, said: ‘‘While all eyes were fixed on me, and I 
began to think that I was gaining their attention, 
some one in the company would sing out, ‘How 
much cost that brass tooth in your mouth? While 
another would yell, ‘What cost you that coat?’ and 
still another, ‘Who taught you our language?” We 
inquired, ‘‘How, at yourage, did you learn to speak 
their language correctly?” He replied, ‘‘I have my 
friends criticise my speech.” 

Infinitely better, home or abroad, that the preacher 
be the best critic as to what he says and how he says 
it. The first thing on the programme of saving 
China is to teach its people, especially the children, 
the English language, and thus lay the foundation 
deep and broad for our Anglo-Saxon civilization. 
Their polytheistic speech is a ‘‘bed shorter than that 
a man can stretch himself on, and a covering nar- 
rower than that he can wrap himself in.” 

(3) Having taught them our language, the school- 
teacher can proceed to instruct them along lines of 
natural science, the central and fundamental truth of 
which is God! 


‘God! let the torrents like a shout of nations 
Answer, and let the ice plains echo, God! 

God, sing the meadow streams with gladsome voice; 
Ye pine groves with your soft and soul-like sound 
And they too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, 

And in their perilous fall shall thunder—God! 

Tell thou the silent sky, 
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, 
Earth, with her thousand voices praises God.’’ 


HOW SHALL CHINA BE CRISTIANIZED? 73 


As every ray of light shoots out from yonder 
burning sun, and but for which there would be noth- 
ing but the blackness of darkness, so every natural 
philosophy shoots out from God, but for whom the 
500,000 worlds which now come within the range of 
the telescope, would lapse into confusion. All 
natural philosophies are but the tracks of God's . 
chariot wheels which mark His everlasting going. 
As God made the intellectual soul a fit complement 
to philosophy, that it might track His endless going, 
he, therefore, who studies philosophy and stops short 
of God, philosophy in his case has utterly failed to 
answer the purpose of its divine appointment. And 
the college which confers the arts degree upon a 
young man because he has a smattering of Greek, 
etcetera, and yet is utterly ignorant of God, has un- 
wittingly recruited one more to the great army of 
fools. The loving thought of God must lie at the 
foundation of all true scholarship and noble man- 
hood, as well as at the basis of all God-honored 
civilizations. When the matchless truth of one God 
has driven from the Chinese mind the superstitious 
thought of ‘‘gods many and lords many,” then, and 
not until then, will it be prepared to appreciate the 
final message, ‘‘God is Love.”’ 

All this goes upon the supposition of a hearty 
willingness on the part of China. If such peaceful 
and loving efforts at playing the part of the good 
Samaritan, only excite the antagonism of those 
Mongolians, it will be in evidence that they are a 
race of degenerates, and that the degeneracy which 
began more than a thousand years ago, will continue 


74 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


until it shall be for the glory of God and the elevation 
of mankind, that they be swept from the face of the 
earth as were the antediluvians. Such a thought, 
however, hardly comes within the purview of a pos- 
sibility. 

Those multiplied millions of ignorant human 
beings, who are naturally peace-loving, who for un- 
told ages have occupied that vast country of flowers, 
fruits and singing birds; and who are the rightful 
owners of all they survey, are only waiting, in the 
providence of God, to be touched into intelligent 
manhood by the divine means now held in the hands 
of Christian Europe and America. If as disciples of 
the loving Master, we were of ‘‘one accord” in lov- 
ing methods, the Almighty Father would be pleased 
to bless the strong who seek to lift up the weak, the 
intelligent who strive to enlighten the ignorant so 
that they may see the folly and curse of idolatry. 

If at the end of one thousand years, the native in- 
tellect has been so trained as to discover the debas- 
ing folly of worshiping these ‘‘imps of the imagina- 
tion,’’ and by the radiance of its intelligence has 
discovered the sublime truth of one Almighty as 
central to all philosophies, then verily, shall we 
‘‘prepare the way of the Lord and make straight in 
the desert a highway for our God.” 


CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 75 


SECTION (IX) 
Conclusion of the Whole Matter. 


Men of intelligence and piety differ widely in the 
details of philosophy, morals and theology; never- 
theless, they are mainly agreed as to the fundamentals 
of science, ethics and religion. Philosophers and 
theologians who have given the matter any seri- 
ous thought, are substantially at agreement touch- 
ing the essential truths which lie at the foundation ot 
the character of a manly man. To sum up the fol- 
lowing paramount philosophies is to have the ‘‘con- 
clusion of the whole matter.” 

First. The human soul has been created subject to 
laws. These divine statutes are recognized by intel- 
ligence as the counterpart of the soul’s nature and 
necessity. As the spiritual man is made for eternity, 
while material worlds are transitory; and as these 
govermental laws were enacted in the councils of in- 
finite wisdom and boundless benovelence, they are, 
therefore, more fixed than the stars. We may plead 
ignorance as an excuse for our disobedience, never- 
theless the law is inexorable. 

Second. All are agreed that the soul’s growth into 
lofty manhood depends wholly upon its knowledge 
of and obedience to these immutable enactments. 


76 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


Even to touch the spirit of a manly man, is to be as- 
sured that he dwells in the courts of the Lord as an 
obedient servant. No one hesitates to believe that 
exalted manhood is in the ratio of conformity to the 
divine administration of psychological law. The sum 
of loving obedience is the exact measure of the man, 
neither more nor less. The depths of one’s degra- 
dation, too, tell the entire story of his ignorance and 
transgression. , 

Third. Not only does lofty character rest on the 
foundation of obedience but conscious contentment is 
in the ratio of one’s harmony with the administration 
of divine affairs. As ‘‘perfect peace” is the product 
of perfect harmony, so the troubled spirit is the re- 
sult of inward confusion. As the soul’s well-being 
depends wholly on its obedience to the laws of its 
being, so, therefore, these two states of mind, quiet 
and disquiet, serve the good purpose of keeping man 
in the ‘‘narrow. way.” Conscience and God being 
on the same side, the divine mission of the former is 
to keep the soul in perfect harmony with the laws of 
the latter. When man acts in perfect keeping 
with his exalted sense of rzght, conscience smiles 
peacefully that he may be kept in the way of 
righteousness ; but when he violates the law of right 
doing, by ever so little, conscience gently reminds 
him of the infinite fact that ‘‘sin wrongs the soul,”’ 
and if he persist in his downward way, this ‘‘dis- 
turber of the soul” will ‘fiercely brandish a sharp 
scourge within.” 

Fourth. From the foregoing, next to axiomatical 
truths, it must be apparent to the least attentive ob- 


CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 77 


server, that the one supreme duty of every man is to 
study to know what these divine laws of his nature 
are, and then to bring himself into blissful harmony 
with their heavenly administration. If God’s typical 
manhood, as everybody knows, hinges on man’s con- 
formity to these divine requirements, and as experi- 
ence tells us that we have all the peace we live for in 
obedience, and all the unrest we work for in disobedi- 
ence, can there be such an immeasurable service as 
that of trying to comprehend these laws of the soul, 
and then bending every energy to bring ourselves into 
perfect accord with the harmonies of the universe? 
As this is the most exalted service, so it is the most 
difficult. This thought is in perfect keeping with the 
‘‘conclusion of the whole matter” as summed up by 
the wise man, ‘‘Fear God and keep His command- 
ments, for this is the whole duty of man.”’ 

Fifth. Neither philosophers nor theologians are in 
dispute as to what these laws of the soul are! What- 
ever other divine precepts there may be, all are 
agreed that God’s typical manhood is the legitimate 
product of obedience to the laws of faith, honesty, 
truth, justice, kindness'and love. While fazth is the 
basic law of the temple of manliness, Jove is the 
crowning tower of that noble structure. As the apex 
of a pyramid is that point toward which all the lines 
of the shaft converge, so perfect obedience to the one 
law of love is the pinnacle of loftiest manhood toward 
which all other laws of the soul point. As the sun is 
central to the solar system, because of his greater at- 
tractive power, so the law of Jove is central to the en- 
tire system of law, for the reason that it stands for 


78 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


Omnipotence ‘‘God is Love.”’ Asall the planets and 
satellites revolve around the sun, so all the divine 
requirements, great and small, circle around the 
matchless law of ‘‘love to God and love to man.” 
‘(Love never faileth.”’ 

Sixth. All are agreed, too, that for man to compre- 
hend this supreme law of love and bring himself into 
harmony with its divine administration, is the grand- 
est achievement of the human soul. While the at- 
tainment of ‘‘perfect love,” which ‘‘casteth out fear,” 
is the ultimate end of the divine appointment of the 
race of mankind, it has therefore been the one ob- 
jective point toward which humanity has been wend- 
ing its way during all these weary centuries. And 
now at the end of all the toilsome ages how compara- 
tively few understand, by a most blessed experience, 
the unspeakable good that comes to the soul because 
of its knowledge of and obedience to this supreme 
law of love.. In the light of the experience of the best 
men of the ages, it is safe to say that the wisest man 
in the wide world, in the eyes of our benevolent 
Creator, may not be the man who knows most of 
mathematics and the science of the stars, but it is the 
man who knows most of God as universal Father and 
man as universal brother. 

Seventh. Asthe comprehension of this apex law of 
the soul was to be humanity’s final victory, at the end 
of the ages, Jesus came that He might make pos- 
sible this final triumph. He came to give the ‘‘new 
commandment.’’ Our Lord’s mission, therefore, was: 
nothing less, it could have been nothing more, than 
to make known the soul’s immeasurable law of love. 


CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 79 


As a knowledge of this supreme law of love neces- 
sarily involves an experimental knowledge of the 
laws of honesty, truth, justice, kindness, etc., and as 
exalted manhood is the legitimate product of obedi- 
ence to these laws, as everybody knows, it follows, 
therefore, that the Christ religion of love is but a 
duplicate copy of the soul’s nature and necessity. 
Moreover, it clearly shows that Christianity per se, 
pure and simple, forever bars infidelity, and that its 
only stock in trade has been, is now and must forever 
be, its criticisms of human theology. 

Eighth. From the foregoing propositions it must 
be obvious to the careful reader, that as even a partial 
intellectual comprehension of the measureless truth 
of the Almighty’s infinite benevolence is the grand- 
est victory of the human mind, it must follow, as a 
philosophical necessity, that if China ever reaches 
these exalted heights her people must begin at the 
bottom and not at the op. We must not forget the 
foregoing logic: (1) The degrading doctrine of 
polytheism and idolatry must be elimznated, if it re- 
quire a thousand years of faithful training. (2) When 
the Christian school-teacher, by working mainly with 
the children, and with the English language, has 
succeeded in driving from the Chinese mind the long 
fixed thought of ‘lords many and gods many,”’ he is 
then ready to teach China, as Moses taught Israel, 
the sublime doctrine of one God, and like Moses, lay 
the foundation for the final message, ‘‘God is Love.”’ 
(3) When the Christian school-teacher has done his 
perfect work, it may be at the end of centuries, by 
that time we may reasonably hope that sectism shall 


80 THE CHINESE PROBLEM... 


have played its cruel part, and the church, united in 
the sweet fellowship of a universal love, may send 
her missionaries to China to preach the gospel. 

In view of the foregoing conceded steps of phi- 
losophy, if some such divine plan be not adopted, it 
is safe to predict that the heart-sickening scenes of 
the past will continue to disgrace our holy Christiani- 
ty. Having shown from mental philosophy, from 
the divine plan of salvation, and from Him whose 
words are yea and amen, that the modern methods 
of dealing with China must, of necessity, result in 
nothing but miserable failure, we ask the candid 
reader prayerfully to examine the following figures 
which join the foregoing testimony in proving be- 
yond doubt that millions of money have been spent, 
thousands of lives sacrificed, the whole Christian 
world in arms, and absolutely worse than nothing to 
show for the enormous sacrifice: 

The following statistics have been collated by the 
Reynolds Newspaper (London) as given by The 
Literary Digest. ‘‘The writer states that the Church 
Missionary Society (Church of England) has an an- 
nual income of about $2,000,000. The collection 
of this money alone costs about $129,000; adminis- 
tration costs about $79,500; salaries to nineteen 
clergymen as association secretaries amount to 
$27,160. The London Missionary Society has an 
income of about $750,840 yearly, while its foreign 
secretary, Rev. M. W. Thompson, receives about 
$4,000 per annum, and others receive proportion- 
ately large amounts.”’ 

The writer refers to other denominations outside 


CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 8I 


the Church of England, whose receipts and ex- 
penditures are comparatively about the same. He 
then inquires, ‘‘What are the results abroad?” It is 
generous and noble for the public magnanimously to 
respond to the earnest appeals of Missionary Boards, 
if only it be for the benefit of mankind and for the 
glory of God. But when it results inan unmitigated 
curse to humanity anda dishonor to the great Father, 
then it is time to calla halt. As to ‘‘results,” the 
writer says, ‘In India, with its population of 350,- 
000,000, the number of converts made by the Church 
Missionary Society, after more than a century’s labor, 
is today 35,640, though no fewer than 3,424 agents 
are at work. . . . The above number includes 
the helpless children. In the year 1889-90, there 
was a gain of 1,836, mostly the babes of converts. 
Thus it took two missionary agents and a sum of 
$565, to secure one convert, babe or adult, in a 
year. The other societies have even a more unsatis- 
factory record.” 

‘As further cited, ‘‘Mr. W. S. Caine, M. P., on his 
recent return from India, writing in the Birmingham 
Post, February 14, 1889, thus sums up his opinion 
of the attempt to ‘Christianize’ India. Educated 
India is looking for a religion, but turns its back on 
Christ and His teaching as presented by the mission- 
ary. As far as turning the young men they educate 
into Christians, the failure is complete and unmis- 
takable.”’ Other travelers are referred to as making 
similar reports. 

Having had the testimony of travelers, the evi- 
dence given by the Church Missionary Society for 


82 THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 


1900 is even more to the point, going to show the 
absolute worthlessness of missionary work in India. 
It says, ‘‘At present there is rather a low standard 
of Christian living. It is the same story that was 
told some years ago by the Rev. Sidney Smith, that 
the native that bore the name Christian was com- 
monly nothing more than a drunken reprobate, who 
conceives himself at liberty to eat and drink anything 
he pleases, and annexes hardly any other meaning to 
Christianity.” 

We thus have the report, not only of unbiased 
travelers in India, but that given by the great central 
Missionary Board itself, going to show that the con- 
verted idol worshiper is a worse character after con- 
version than he was before. When figures show that 
it requires the labor of two men for one year, and 
the expenditure of $565, to convert one Indian, 
and he a worse sinner after conversion than he was 
before, it is somewhat amazing!! But for our adit 
of thinking, it would be simply astounding!!! Whar 
is true of India is equally true of China, Japan, or 
any other people on the globe whose mind is sur- 
charged with the silly and degrading doctrine of 
polytheism and consequent idolatry. It may be un- 
intentional, but nevertheless, when we preach to 
such a people the loftiest truth that ever challenged 
human intelligence, we not only disregard the in- 
structions of our divine Master, go contrary to the 
teaching of mental philosophy, and grossly violate 
God’s immutable law of preparation, but we unwit- 
tingly perpetrate upon credulous humanity the most 
colossal fraud the angels ever witnessed! 


CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 83 


When we think ourselves up out of the old line of 
thought, and calmly and prayerfully consider the 
enormous sacrifices of the last one hundred years, 
and then impassionately view the heart-sickening re- 
sults of all this honest toil, can even imagination 
conceive a greater exhibition of imbecility, than for 
the Missionary Boards to continue the old methods 
which God never blessed and never will? By adopt- 
ing God’s method as herein suggested, it will come 
to pass in the long-off future, that ‘‘the way of the 
Lord” will be so well prepared that our brethren of 
the Celestial Empire will send the Macedonian cry, 
“Come over and help us.” When that glad day 
shall dawn, and Europe and America have become 
so far Christianized as to be able to ‘‘keep the unity 
of the spirit in the bond of peace,’ and thus present 
a solid front, then in the sweet fellowship of a uni- 
versal love the missionaries may flock to China to 
learn ‘‘war no more,” but to preach the inaugural 
of a glorious hope; and under the leadership of the 
loving Christ, and by the peaceful ‘Sword of the 
Spirit,” take up the triumphal march, and together 
with India, China, Japan, the nations of the earth 
and the islands of the sea, under the one sweet spirit 
of omnipotent love they ‘‘shall go out with joy, 
and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the 
hills shall break forth before you into singing, and 
all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” 
God speed the good time coming. Amen. 


‘ 


McWHINNEY’S WORKS. 


“HEAVENLY RECOGNITION.” 
The Natural and Scriptural Argument for Immortality and Personal Identity after 


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“CRIME LEGALIZED.” ‘ 


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President, Defiance College, Ohio. . 


Order of Christian Publishing Association, or the 
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